


Full of Grace

by Praxid



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1417180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Praxid/pseuds/Praxid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth escaped her captors, but not without a cost-one she didn't fully understand for a very long time. But one thing was clear, as she fought to survive in the woods, alone: nothing would ever be the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_I'm finally back with a new story-Full of Grace. This is about Beth Greene, who has always captured my interest. I think it's time to delve into her head a bit. So a few notes, before we start-this story is a character study-it's **not**  a romance. There will be no romance of any kind in these pages-in keeping with my withered up, shriveled heart._

**_Also: and this is important-this fic comes with a strong trigger warning. It frankly discusses violent themes, sexual and otherwise. It won't be graphic, but it will continually return to these themes. If you are concerned that would upset you, you shouldn't read the fic. I don't want to cause you any distress or anxiety. If you aren't sure if you should read it, you can PM me and I can answer any questions you have._ **

_One last thing: I'm really extremely sorry if I haven't gotten back to you and you've messaged me-I've been having some bad bouts of illness and anxiety (and illness caused by anxiety). I have found it really hard to keep up with my inbox. But I do read all your messages and would especially love to hear what you think about this new offering. I value everything you have to say and I very much want to hear what you think about my work._

_It's been a long time since I've written much, and it's time for me to start again. Here we go._

* * *

_The Tree That Owns Itself_

Beth stared at her hands.

She'd lost track of how many days had passed since she'd escaped from the men who took her. A week. Maybe two. She didn't know. But regardless of how long it'd been, her hands were still just  _mangled_. Covered in cuts, and deep scratches. Gouges from the splinters she'd had to work out, bit by bit, after she escaped. The scabs still cracked sometimes—opened up and oozed blood and left stains on her skin.

The wounds were deep—so deep that Beth had no idea how long they'd take to heal.

Some of her split fingernails were starting to grow out, by now—the bruised skin underneath left heavy marks on them, like the rings you see on a tree stump. The narrow ones that mark a bad winter.

And her right index finger—that was the worst. She'd lost the entire  _fingernail_ , there. Ripped it straight off, trying to get out of their trap. It was only just starting to grow back in, now. A pale sliver, sprouting from the bloody quick like a little, crescent moon.

Beth looked away. Wanted to forget about her hands for a while, if she could. Leaned against the attic window, and looked out over the night. Over the still buildings—just shadowed lumps in the distance, following the contours of the hills.

And she hummed to herself. Listened to the sound of her voice echoing off the rough beams above her head.

* * *

As the sun went down, Beth started to notice some lights in the distance.

They were way down the hill, at the edge of town. Hazy and dim, through the film of dirt on the tiny, porthole window.

She pressed close against the glass. Stared past the shadowed clusters of rooftops, and down towards those lights. There were pretty faint, clustered together in a few, far-away windows. Probably Coleman lanterns, or something—turned down low.

Someone was  _down there_ —more than  _one_  someone. She thought they might be in the church—Beth could see the faint outline of the bell tower against the night sky. The windows had a gothic curve to them—the light showed them in fine relief against the darkness.

A church would be a nice place to spend the night. Pretty. All that cool, grey stone and open space. She imagined that if you got up real close, the lights would make the stained-glass windows glow.

Her attic was nothing like that—the place was ugly, and musty, and hot. But that was ok. She had to remind herself about what was important. It was isolated. Sheltered.

Safe.

In any case, those people were way down there and she was hidden away up here—so Beth figured she could just ignore the lights in the church, for now. She turned away from the window. Got up, and paced the room. Saw her own shadow on the floorboards, flickering in the glow of her single, tea-light candle.

And Beth wandered around. Tried to distract herself. Listened to her boots as they made the planks creak. Stepped around boxes and trunks and musty, old things in dropcloths—all stacked up in piles, under the low-pitched roof. Tried to be careful not to hit her head on the sagging insulation, and the old beams.

She used to love attics, as a kid. On rainy days, when she couldn't go outside to play, she'd make Shawn and Maggie take her up in the one at home. There were things to explore up there, and it was a great spot for games.

Her favorite had been hide-and-seek, back then.

And it struck her, a moment. Beth wasn't a little kid, anymore, but she was still hiding—even though it wasn't as much fun as it used to be.

* * *

Beth rifled through a cedar chest, up in that attic—looking for the stuff to build a bed for the night.

Chests like that always seemed to hold the same kind of stuff—linens and towels and sheets and blankets. It was like they  _grew_  inside those things. Like you could put in a single pillowcase, and years later, if you opened it up again, there'd be a whole garden of sheets and napkins and hand-knotted lace. They'd just sprout there, all on their own.

And there was quite a harvest in the trunk Beth opened. Almost right away, she found an old quilt—thickly tufted, sewn by hand, and covered with blooming flowers. It was carefully folded on top of some tablecloths. Had a name embroidered on one corner:

" _Sally Lee Schwartz – 1952_ "

Beth touched the lettering, there. Traced the threads, where they'd been pulled carefully into place some sixty years ago. Tried to ignore the split nails on her fingers, when she did it. The bloody scrapes.

Beth swallowed, hard, and ran her hand across the quilt.

"Thanks, Sally," she said.

And when she'd made her nest, Beth went to curl up in it. Stopped to take off her boots. She'd been on her own for a long, long time, now—and she was  _sick_  of sleeping with her boots on. Of being ready to run at any second. And she'd blocked the trap door with some heavy boxes—no one could get at her, up here. Not without making a good deal of noise, first.

And those boots were  _hot_. Sticky. Made it hard to sleep.

Beth figured she deserved some comfort.

And as she put her boots aside, the lights down the hill caught her eye, again—just for a second, before she turned away.

She nestled into Sally's quilt. Tried to cushion her head with her arms. Looked at her wrists, resting there in front of her face—pale in the flicker of her tiny candle.

The wounds from the ropes were still raw, there—angry and red. They almost completely hid the scars she had, from that time she'd tried to kill herself.

Beth sighed. She'd been so  _stupid_ , back then.

Then she rolled over. Blew out her candle, and tried to fall asleep.

* * *

The next morning, Beth decided to leave town.

She couldn't stop thinking about the church down the hill. If the people were still there. How many there were, and what they were like.

But it didn't matter. She couldn't stay here. It wasn't safe.

So she got herself ready, and headed out around dawn. Moved through the side streets, trying to slip away to the edge of town without being noticed.

Her plan was to avoid the church, altogether. But somehow... she found herself drifting towards it. Got closer and closer to the thing. It was like her feet just headed that way, without express permission from the rest of her body.

And the closer she got, the more tempted she was to look around. To see. Just to see who might be there.

_I'll just slip around it. Real fast—and real quiet. I'll see what's there, and then I'll keep going._

She was almost embarrassed by it. By wanting to look. And there was a part of her—a part way down deep, that thought it could be some of her friends. Maggie. Glenn. Daryl. It might be them.

It just  _might_  be…

Because Daryl told her something, one night, after he'd started being nicer to her. He told her about the scouting trips he'd made with Michonne—when they were looking for The Governor together, last winter. And on one of the longest ones, he said they'd made it out this way—all the way up to Athens. A good fifty miles from the prison.

The place had some pretty good supplies, he said. Most of them hadn't been looted, yet, 'cause of the herds last summer. They drove the people off. But those herds had long since moved on, and left the place empty—except for the stragglers.

And Daryl—he told Beth he'd bring her up the highway, and take her there. That he'd find somewhere to for them to live, for a while.

"Who knows?" he'd said, at the time, as he leaned in to stoke their campfire, "Maybe Michonne told some of the others 'bout it. So… maybe… maybe they'll be there, too."

Maybe.

It's why she'd come here, if she honest with herself. Not just to this church—but to the town. She'd walked for days. For miles. Been through so much. Just because he told her that story by the fireside.

Maybe she was still a little stupid, after all.

* * *

Beth looked down the road. The neat rows of trees on either side. The morning light making the shadows pool on the asphalt.

She shifted her pack on her shoulder, and kept heading down the street.

When she was almost at the church, Beth saw something.

She tensed up. Drew her knife, and inched forward.

A walker. An emaciated, bony thing with long, scraggly hair. She guessed it had been a woman, once—though it was hard to tell.

She didn't want it to hear her coming. There was only one, and it looked pretty weak, but there was no reason to take chances.

The thing was looking away from her. Beth slipped along as quietly as she could, and came up close.

And she grabbed the back of its shoulder and lunged hard—drove the knife up into its brain from the base of the neck. Yanked the blade free, and watched it fall. Looked down at it, sprawled there on the pavement, as she caught her breath.

"I'm sorry," she said.

And she looked around. The rest of the street was silent. And she was standing under the branches of a big, white oak—one planted neatly in the center of a traffic circle, there. There was a  _plaque_ , at the base of that tree. She stepped over the body on the ground, and made her way over to read it:

**The Tree That Owns Itself**

_For and in Consideration_  
 _Of the Great Love I Bear_  
 _This Tree and the Great Desire_  
 _I have for its Protection_  
 _For All Time, I Convey Entire_  
 _Possession of Itself and_  
 _All Land Within Eight Feet  
_ _Of The Tree on All Sides_

**William H. Jackson**

She looked up at the branches, and whispered the name up into them:

"The tree that  _owns itself_ …"

She  _remembered_  that name. Knew it. Two summers ago, Beth's daddy told her all about that tree. He did it while they were clearing all the old storage boxes out of the barn.

They needed that space for something different, just then. It needed to be completely cleared, because they had to put Mom and Shawn in there.

* * *

When Mom and Shawn turned, Otis shut them up in the back bedroom. Locked the door, and barricaded it with Mom's old china cabinet. But Mom and Shawn… from the moment he  _put_  them there, they'd both been trying to break through. At the time, it gave Beth this sinking feeling. She worried it was because they wanted to get at the rest of the family. To bite them.

In any case, nobody could sleep with the sound of them thud-thud-thudding away like that. Beating at the door with their hands. And after a while, it got so you couldn't pay attention to anything  _else_.

Thud-thud-thud. Thud-thud-thud. All day. All night.

So they needed to move them into the barn. They  _had_  to.

And besides—it looked like Mom and Shawn might have some company, real soon. More than would fit in a back bedroom.

Just that morning, Otis said he saw Mr. Richards walking around in one of the outer fields. Said he looked like he was sick—just like Mom and her big brother.

And that wasn't  _safe_. If they left him out there, Mr. Richards might bite someone. Hurt them, and make  _them_  sick. And the way he was—out in the elements, just aimlessly wandering around… he might hurt  _himself_ , too. Might fall and get cut, or break a bone.

So they had to do something about it.

Otis and Jimmy were out trying to round him up—used some of the catch poles from her daddy's office. The ones they had to control the bigger animals, when they had to. Maggie and Patricia were busy somewhere else—seeing to the horses, if Beth remembered right. And that—that left Beth and Daddy to clear out the barn.

And that place—it was just  _crammed_  with old things nobody really needed, anymore. A lot of it was her grandpa's stuff—old newspapers. A couple rusty bicycles. Outdated farm equipment. A big collection of Betamax tapes in cardboard boxes.

And then there were some old Life Magazines. Beth looked at the one on top of the bundle, a moment. And that  _tree_ —that same tree was on the cover.

The tree that owns itself.

"Hey, Daddy," she'd said, holding up the picture for him to see, "What's this  _mean?_  How can a tree  _own_   _itself_?"

He came over, and gave it a good look.

"Oh right, I remember this," he said, leaning over her shoulder, "Well… I suppose everyone thinks it's earned it. That tree was growing there before anyone 'round these parts owned much of  _anything_. Since the sixteen-hundreds, at least."

"Wow… it's  _that old_?"

"Well, it is and it isn't," Daddy said, kneeling down beside her. And she realized he'd gotten his story-telling voice out. The special one he saved just for her. And she almost smiled—then—forgot why they were moving all this stuff to begin with.

She'd always loved hearing his stories.

"The tree fell over, once, back in the forties," Daddy said, laying his hand on her shoulder, "Actually—the poor thing toppled the week I was born."

He looked down at the picture of the tree, in her hands:

"That's why your grandmother kept the magazine."

"So it's gone, now?"

She could tell she sounded a little disappointed.

"No, honey—no, they planted one of the acorns. And it sprouted up, again, and it's still there, now."

"It's as old as you," she said. Looked to him. And she couldn't hold it in, anymore—the smile broke out of her. She beamed at him.

And Daddy—despite everything he had to worry about, he smiled back. Reached in close, and patted her cheek, gently.

"Ok, Bethy," he said, "There's a lot to do. Let's keep on hauling this stuff to the basement."

* * *

And now—two summers later—Beth stood under the tree—the second tree. The one planted when her daddy was born.

All of that. It seemed like lifetimes ago. Like it happened to completely different people. They'd all been so  _wrong_  about everything, when this started. Thought Mom and Shawn were sick. Thought there was hope.

It wasn't just her—they'd  _all_  been stupid, then.

She shifted her bag on her shoulder. Felt the wounds on her hands complain as she adjusted the strap. Thought about the walker she'd just taken out—how long it must've been out here, waiting to kill or be killed.

She paused a moment. Knelt down and grabbed one of the acorns. Didn't know why she did it, exactly.

It just seemed like a good idea.

And as she slipped it into her pocket, Beth looked up to the tree—its branches. Talked to it like it was an actual person. Like it could hear her:

"You're wrong," she said, "I'm sorry… but you are."

She got up. Turned to walk away.

" _Nothin'_  owns itself."

* * *

She could see the church, now. And part of her—part of her knew this whole thing was stupid. She shouldn't get close.

But she snuck forward, anyway. Slipped along the edge of the road, against a row of forsythia bushes. And before she knew it, she was in front of the building. Looking up at the grey stone from the wrong side of the iron fence.

The church looked empty. The grass was tall and uncut. Nothing was moving. There was a bell tower—but it was burned out and crumbled. The rest looked pretty much ok.

Someone might be in there. Maybe.

Maybe not.

She scanned the yard—noticed something on the far side—half-hidden in the grass. Walked over to check it out.

Spools of concertina wire. Someone had brought those, here. Someone who wanted to fortify the fence.

"You're plannin' to stay," she whispered.

She inched around the corner, and started moving along the side of the building. Started hearing something, in the distance.

The sound of a hammer—someone working in the yard. Her heart lurched, and she slipped back a bit—against the bushes. Crouched down low. Tried to make sure she wouldn't be seen.

Here at the side, there were a row of pikes worked in between the bars on the fence—buried deep in the dirt and angled out, so they'd catch any walkers who ran onto them.

They had fences at the prison, like that.

But no.  _No_. She wasn't stupid. Not anymore. She wasn't going to think that way.

It was too dangerous. She had to  _go_. And Beth was about to turn away and head off, when she noticed the statue in the yard—half-buried in the grass, off by the far edge of the fence.

It was the Virgin Mary. And someone had dropped a beaten-up, old sheriff's hat over her head.

It was too big for the statue. Covered her whole head. Right down to her outstretched arms, poking out under the brim. It practically swallowed her up—made it so she was completely blindfolded.

Beth stared at it. The hat. Her lips twitched. It didn't seem real.

" _Carl_ …"

She whispered his name to herself. Reached out towards it, as if she could touch the thing, way on the other side of the fence.

And in that moment, she heard his voice.  _Carl_. She'd know it anywhere. He said something to someone, and laughed.

Beth spun towards the sound. Started moving faster.

"Carl," she said—a little louder. She was having trouble speaking. Could barely get the word out.

And there he was. Standing next to Daryl, with one of those pikes in hand. Getting ready to plant it, there, on the other side of the fence.

Neither of them saw her—not right away. So she just looked at them. Took it in. Carl turning to Daryl—pointing to the ground. Asking him for something they needed, lying there in the grass.

And she bit her lip. Felt it trembling. Swallowed, hard. Just seeing them made her want to cry.

Her voice cracked a bit, as she tried to speak up, again:

" _Carl_."

He looked up, and froze in place. Daryl looked up a moment later.

And for a second, nobody said anything. She felt the tears in her eyes, and smiled.

And Carl sprang to life in an instant.

" _Beth!_ " he shouted—and all at once, he took off running—out to the gate, so he could get to her. It was on the other side of the building, so after a few seconds, he disappeared around a corner.

And she and Daryl were alone.

She looked him over. He really looked… the same. Same as ever. He had one of those pikes in one hand—a hammer in the other.

"Daryl," she said. Stepped forward.

He didn't say anything. Didn't look at her. Was staring down—into the grass. Wouldn't meet her eyes.

" _Daryl_ … I—"

Carl slammed into her side, and all at once, there were a pair of arms wrapped around her. And she forgot all about Daryl, then. Tensed in Carl's grip.

And Beth didn't realize it, but she let go of her bag, and it slid down her arm, onto the ground.

Nobody had touched her since she escaped. Her mind was a grey blur.

"Oh my  _God_ ,  _Beth_ …" Carl said, "It's  _you_."

Somehow—hearing her own name, like that… It brought her back to herself. She swallowed the tension, and wrapped her arms around him.

And it was good. It was  _Carl_.

Someone she  _knew_. Someone she loved.

She felt the tears running down her face, but she didn't pull back to wipe them away.

"I never thought I'd see you again," she whispered. And Carl—he buried his face against her shoulder. In her hair. Clung tight.

As they talked, they didn't look at each other. Just clung close.

"And Maggie…" Beth said, "Maggie and Glenn… are they—"

"—Yeah—yeah, they're here. They're ok. Some of us—some of us are."

He trailed off, a moment. So she just held him. Felt the weight of him—warm and solid against her. He was even taller, now, than she remembered. Stronger.

"God, Beth…  _so much's_  happened since the prison… and how'd you  _find us?_  I mean, we thought—we thought you were  _dead_."

And she looked past his shoulder, then. Over through the fence. Daryl was still standing there, just where he'd been when she walked up. He still had that pike in his hand, and the hammer. Just stood there with them, and didn't move.

Behind him, she heard a door opening. Other voices. The others were coming out. They'd heard the commotion in the yard.

And suddenly, she wasn't as excited as she was before. What Carl said echoed in her mind.

_We thought you were dead._

They'd given up on her long ago—as she knew they would. Of course they would. They  _had_  to. There was no other option, in this world.

So now… now they'd want to know everything. Maggie would. Glenn would. They'd want to know everything that happened.

Why she wasn't dead.

It sank in, and dulled the giddy thrill that had been coursing through her. They'd ask questions. They'd want to know.

And she must look  _terrible_. She couldn't remember the last time she'd bathed. She was caked with dirt. Blood from the walkers. Blood from her wounds.

Beth touched Carl's hair. And she remembered those marks on her wrists while she did it. The deep, blood-caked lesions seared deep into her hands.

She remembered them, and knew Daryl was watching. Knew the others would see them, soon after.


	2. Just Another Dead Girl

_Chapter two for you, today. I've been putting a ton of work into this, and I'm quite pleased with it._

_**A reminder: this fic comes with a strong trigger warning. It frankly discusses violent themes, sexual and otherwise. It won't be graphic, but it will continually return to these themes. If you are concerned that would upset you, you shouldn't read the fic. I don't want to cause you any distress or anxiety. If you aren't sure if you should read it, you can PM me and I can answer any questions you have.** _

* * *

_Just Another Dead Girl_

Beth sat next to Bob Stookey on an ugly, pea-green sofa—alone, together, in the pastoral office. One that the church people must've used for things like deacon's meetings. First confessions. Marriage counselling.

She could hear his breath. Feel the warmth from his leg, a few inches away from her own. And it was almost  _disorienting_ —being there next to someone. A normal person—a guy she said hi to in the mornings, back at the prison.

Back home.

One of the last days, there—before people started getting sick, and things went bad, Bob handed her a cup of coffee at breakfast. And Beth  _hated_  coffee—had always thought the stuff was gross. Whenever she tried to have any, she couldn't pour enough sugar in it. Shawn used to tease her, for that.

But when Bob offered her that mug, she took it right away. Drank it down—right to the bitter dregs.

He was pretty new at the prison—had only been there a couple weeks. And that meant he didn't  _know_  her, when she was younger. Didn't know what she was like, back at the farm. And so she hoped the coffee might make her seem like a grown-up, to him. One of the adults, not one of the kids.

And now—at the church—Bob was working on her hands. Trying to clean them up, and make sure they were healing ok. He held them, lightly, and inspected her wounds.

"There's some splinters under the skin." he said, holding her fingers up, "Pieces that got buried when the scrapes healed over."

And he turned her hands—angling them towards the light, palm first. Leaned in close, so she could feel his breath on her skin. And her fingers made a sort of fence, between them. Like the one between her, Carl, and Daryl, when she met them outside in the yard.

She could hear the hammering out there, still. Looked towards the window. She couldn't see the two of them, outside. But she knew they were close.

When she turned back, Bob was staring right at her. She met his eyes, on the other side of her fingers. And for a moment, Beth thought he was going to ask about the splinters, and the cuts. The cracked fingernails.

How they got that way.

But he didn't. He didn't say  _anything_ , really.

The sound of that hammering filled the silence—muted and far away.

* * *

From the moment the men took her, Beth spent all her time with them blindfolded.

In the mortuary, there was a split second when she thought she saw some faces, in the dark. But then her arms were pinned, and they covered her eyes with something, and that was it.

So even weeks later, she never saw the place they brought her, and held her captive—not until the day she escaped. All she could see was the light filtering through the cotton they'd tied over her face.

Hours would go by. Days. It'd get brighter at sunrise, and darker at sunset. She'd see muffled shapes, walking around her—indistinct and cloudy. And that was all.

But she could hear, and touch, and smell—so she learned some things. She knew they were holding her in a barn—took her straight to some farm or other, and forced her up the hayloft ladder, with a gun at her back. And they kept her up there the whole time—bound her hands behind her, so she couldn't really move them.

And if she tried to walk around much, she'd be sure to pitch herself right over the edge of the hayloft. Onto the dirt, who-knows-how-far below.

* * *

After a moment, looking at each other between Beth's fingers, Bob cleared his throat.

"I'm gonna try and tease the splinters out. It shouldn't hurt too bad, ok?"

"Ok," she said, quietly.

He used a small scalpel, heated under a lighter. Lined it up over a dark, scarred patch on her skin, and slipped it underneath the surface.

Beth winced when he made the first cut—swift and shallow. Felt a little dizzy, looking at the blood as it started to trickle down her hand.

But the thing was—no matter how much happened since Bob gave her that coffee mug—Beth still didn't want him to see her flinch.

So she held steady.

And he started teasing out some of the splinters, then. Squeezing against the incisions, slowly, and probing for debris.

It hurt a lot worse than he said it would. Which, in Beth's experience, was the way that most things tend to go.

* * *

Every so often, one or two of the men came up the ladder, and into the hayloft. She'd hear their footfalls, coming closer through the barn. The boots on the rungs, as they climbed.

But even when she was alone, she could hear them close by. Keeping careful watch. The walls were thin and old—rough wood, with gaps in places where the wind blew through. So she could hear the footsteps all around her, from outside. There was  _always_  someone nearby.

Still…  _sometime_ , they'd be bound to slip up. Leave her alone, for a while. All she had to do was wait. And, after that… that hayloft ladder was all that stood between her and freedom. They didn't keep the barn door locked—it wasn't even  _shut_. She could feel the wind floating in over her face from outside. Smell the grass, and the flowering trees. If their attention waned… there'd be a chance.

That's what she had to focus on. Waiting. All those lessons from childhood came back to her.

_Patience is a virtue. Good things come to those who wait._

Her father, reading the Psalms to her on a Sunday afternoon, while she peeled vegetables in the kitchen:

" _I choose the appointed time;_ _it is I who judge uprightly._ _When the earth and all its people quake,_ _it is I who hold its pillars_ _firm."_

She needed to find that appointed time. It would come.

* * *

As Bob worked on her, Beth tried to imagine him as a field medic, way back before the walkers. When he was a soldier in a different war, working on shrapnel wounds at some military base. Way off in a strange, foreign country on the other side of the world.

"Just a little more…" he whispered.

He leaned in close with the scalpel. Pressed gently on the skin, and teased another piece of wood out against the blade. It was so small she couldn't see it on the tip of the knife in his hand.

And he wiped away her blood with a cool, damp cloth. Wrapped her hands in it, and patted at them, gently.

"There… I think that's the last of it," he said, "Nothing wrong, here, that time won't heal."

And he chatted to her a little, while he cleaned the wounds. Dressed them with gauze. He told her about who was with them, and how they got here. Carl, Carol, Michonne, and Rick. Maggie, Glenn, Daryl, and Judith. How they all found each other, and some of what happened at the place called Terminus.

How bad it was.

A lot of the prison group never made it that far. They didn't know what happened to all of them. And he said that after they got free from Terminus, Sasha and Tyreese left with some newcomers. A soldier, and his friends. A woman Glenn met on the road.

And Sasha—Bob seemed sad when he said her name. Like he was remembering something he'd lost.

Finally—when he was about finished working on her—he went back to talking about the business at hand:

"These wounds're healing up pretty good, all told. You treat 'em with anything while you were out there?"

She stared down at them. The fresh bandages. The skin, peeking out beneath them, riddled with scars.

"I just pulled the bigger splinters out. Tried to keep 'em clean, best I could…"

Bob stood up. Gathered his things.

"You did really well."

She didn't think he was talking about the wounds. Not really. And Beth didn't know Bob well, but she could tell that he was a gentle man.

She'd always been good at sensing kindness, wherever it hid.

Bob went to the door, med kit tucked under his arm. Stopped there, and looked at her. Didn't say anything.

So Beth did:

"Thank you."

He nodded. Almost stepped out. But he stopped himself. Turned back.

"Are you hurt anywhere else…? Anything else you want me to look at?"

"No," Beth said, folding her hands into her lap, "No. I'm fine."

* * *

Some afternoons, the men would all gather together in the barn. They'd drink, and talk, and joke around.

One day, they read her diary to each other, aloud.

"Hey—keep going," one of the voices said, "What else it say in there, Bill?"

"Let's see…"

The sound of rustling paper—a page, turning. Cicadas, in the grass outside.

" _Judy's gassy and she won't let me go to sleep_ …"

One of the men snorted.

"Not  _that_ —somethin'  _good_."

" _Ain't_  nothin' good in this thing. It's shit."

"How 'bout that kid, Zack—he ever fuck her?"

"Lemme look..."

Silence. The sound of Bill flipping the pages. People shifting around. They were sitting on hay bales, probably—in a circle. Had their pet dog at their feet. She could hear it moving a bit—hear the collar jingling, off and on.

Time passed. Someone coughed. Finally, someone spoke up:

"… you sure Bill can  _read?_ "

And there was laughter, then. Bill's good-natured cursing, in return. He told his buddies to go fuck themselves, with a smile in his voice.

But then he flipped another page, and stopped.

"Hey, I got one."

Bill put on a dramatic falsetto, and started to read:

" _Thank God Maggie's ok. I've been so worried I couldn't eat anything. When they didn't show up after the run, and it started getting dark, I got the worst feeling. I feel bad sayin' it—but I figured they had to be dead_."

She heard one of them spit on the ground, then. A good volume, from deep in the throat.

"Which one' s Maggie, again?"

" _I_   _dunno_ —shut up and listen."

Bill cleared his throat.

" _It turned out they just got stuck out of the prison, overnight. Had to detour 'round a big herd on the freeway_.  _But the thing is… when they came back, Glenn didn't come see me. Maggie did, of course—but even with how long they were gone, he didn't say hello or anything. And it makes me feel bad, you know? He's so close with Daddy and he makes Maggie so happy, but it's like he doesn't notice me, most of the time._ "

The dog was running around, now. She could hear it panting. Heard it shake. And she listened to the birdsong outside. Tried to ignore the voices, and focus on the sunlight drifting through the blindfold.

All she had to do was wait.

" _I've been thinking about why Glenn's like that. Maybe it's 'cause of his sisters. Maggie told me he grew up with a lot of 'em. And they're all gone, now. So maybe he's just not ready to have a new one, yet_."

And—out of nowhere—a noise.

_Thud_.

It shook the wall of the barn at her back, and she flinched.

Again.

_Thud_.

A tennis ball. They were throwing a tennis ball for the dog. It barked, once, and ran. She could hear the scrabbling of its paws on the dirt floor.

"C'mon— _go get it, boy!_ "

They were… being  _guys_. Shooting the shit—that's how Otis would've put it. Could've been a Saturday afternoon at any of the neighboring farms, back home—except instead of reading her diary, they'd be listening to a baseball game on the radio.

She heard someone pop the top off a beer, or a can of soda. Wondered if it could possibly be any good, by now.

Spring was turning into summer, and it was starting to get hot. So maybe they sank their beer in a stream bed, to chill the cans. Make them taste fresh, and cool—like drinks should be in hot weather.

* * *

Bob left her, and Maggie came in. Brought her a bucket of warm water, and some washcloths. A spare change of clothes—Maggie's spare jeans. A shirt that belonged to Carol.

They were both a bit too big for her, but they'd have to do.

When Beth stripped down, she didn't have a mirror. But she could see herself in Maggie's eyes. How she reacted, when she saw.

Beth had her clothes off in front of Maggie countless times before, of course—trying on dresses in mall changing rooms. Skinny dipping when they snuck off alone, on camping trips. And way back in some of her earliest memories—childhood baths. Running in the sprinkler. Jumping in the pond.

But with her sister  _looking_  at her like that, Beth felt more naked than she ever had, back then.

She tried to ignore that feeling. Just worked on the dirt and mud and blood, caked all over her skin. Ran the damp cloth over scrapes and cuts she'd gotten from pushing through the forest underbrush. Bug bites. Bruises. Some of those were fresh and angry and red.  _Some_  of them, though—some of them were older than that. All in tones of greens and yellows. Fading so slow that it seemed like they'd stay there forever.

Her body was  _different_ , now—different from how it was at the prison She was dimly aware of strange pains, all over. She had a dull, persistent headache—one that had grown steadily since the time she escaped. When she scrubbed at her chest, her breasts were raw and tender to the touch.

She was thinner, from going hungry out on the road. And her muscles were so  _tired_. Her feet were were sore and calloused—she'd put countless miles behind her, the last week or so.

Somehow she hadn't noticed, until she'd stopped running.

And Beth wondered about her face., then. If it had changed, any, since the prison fell.

She soaped up her hair, and rinsed it. Wrapped herself in one of the towels. Maggie picked at the snarls in her hair with a comb. As the world grew dark outside, the windows reflected the room back to them, both. So Beth watched her do it, in the reflection from the glass—tried to make out what she looked like from the murky reflection, there, as her sister tried to work out the knots.

Tried to undo what had been done.

* * *

Eventually, the men got bored with Beth's diary.

The sun went down late, that evening. As it went down, all she could see was the lazy, golden light, seeping through that blindfold. The sounds below died down, over time. Some of the men drifted off—into the farmhouse beyond the barn, she gathered.

She'd never seen it, but she assumed there had to be one.

Those who remained got distracted—forgot her diary—and chatted about other things.

And Beth knew it—just like they got bored with that diary… someday, they'd get bored with her.

They'd kill her, then. Or just  _leave her_  up here, to die of thirst. To turn, and flail on the wood—blind and bound—until she rotted away to nothing.

She took that in, as the light faded outside. Remembered her father, somehow. How he read to her at the kitchen table, while she sliced up the cucumbers for a salad:

_It is God who judges:_ _He brings one down, he exalts another._ _In the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed_ _with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its bitter dregs._

Finally, there was just one of the men left, down there. Beth heard him pacing, out on the dirt floor, down below. Heard his lighter. The smell of his cigarette wafted up to her, a moment later.

And she knew that none of them had forgotten about her, just yet.

So she held her breath. Didn't want him to hear her, and think of coming up here. There was no hope to escape—not yet. So she wanted to be invisible. Wanted to be as formless as the dying light beyond the blindfold.

And this time, he didn't make for the ladder. The footfalls grew quiet. Went off towards the barn door, and faded away, beyond it. The stale smell of cigarette smoke in the air was the only sign he'd ever been there at all.

But she knew it was only a matter of time before those footsteps came  _closer_. Before one of them headed up the ladder, again.

* * *

At the church, in the evening, a soft rain started falling on the roof. Beth was still in the office—hadn't seen any of the others all day.

That could wait until later. Right now, Beth just rested on the couch. Maggie had her head cradled in her lap. And they just sat there, together, listening to quiet peals of thunder, rolling out soft and quiet in the distance.

Beth was safe. As close to safe as she'd ever be.

She spent most of the day sleeping. Didn't realize how tired she was. She'd been running so long she'd almost forgotten what it was like to rest.

And now, evening was setting in. Maggie set a Coleman lantern going on the desk at the far wall, and it filled the room with a dim glow. It must've been one of the lights Beth saw from across town—when she was hiding in that attic, the night before.

The bucket she'd used to wash up was still in the corner, full of grey, foul water. Cast aside, to be tossed out, later. She looked at it. Thought of all the dirt and blood and sweat and tears diluted in that water.

"Bob told me the stuff that happened to you guys," she said.

Maggie shook her head. Laid a hand against the side of Beth's face.

"Don't worry about any of that. We're ok, now."

But Beth pressed on.

"He told me about who made it—but he didn't mention all the kids. Just Judith. Are… are any of the other kids here…?"

Maggie didn't say anything, and Beth sighed.

They didn't talk any more, that night. Maggie stroked her hair, and they listened to the rain. Beth started to drift off, again. Barely noticed when Maggie gently lifted her head. Rested it down on a pillow, and left her to sleep.

* * *

At last—after weeks of patient waiting—the moment came.

Beth made it to the barn door. Her hands were free, and she was on her feet. Ready to run.

She only looked back a moment. At the barn. The hayloft. The dead body she'd left lying out on the floor. The man. Her diary was there, near him on the dirt, forgotten. The wind turned the pages, and kicked up the dust.

_I killed that man. Me._ _ **I**_   _killed him._

And if the rest of them caught her, they'd kill her right back.

There was a sound—loud and bright. It made her jump, and she spun around.

The dog barking. Sounding the alarm for the others.

_Run_.

Beth bolted.

Cicadas were calling in the hard sun. Everything outside was brighter than she remembered—the light pierced her skin. Sharp pain shot through her hands, where they were torn up. Her fingers—like they were on fire. She felt the hot blood running all over them. Onto her torn, dirty jeans. Onto the dirt at her feet.

And the dog was going  _crazy_. There was a frenzy of barking, at her back. Snarls. And Beth knew the thing must be tied up, or it'd be on her by now.

Her vision reeled—her legs were weak. But she made it into the yard. Spun around—trying to get her bearings. Figure out what to do, now that she was loose.

She felt a little like she was drunk. What little experience she had of that feeling.

And past the barn—up on a slope. There was the farmhouse. A respectable looking sort of thing, with a couple trucks in front, loaded with supplies.

When they came for her, they'd be coming from in there. So she darted around the side of the barn. Used it to block herself from view.

Beth ran into the open grass—all growing wild, so it came up past her knees. She strained for the trees. Pushed herself forward, through the weeds. And it felt so  _slow_. Like a dream where your legs don't work right.

The barking echoed out from behind her—fainter, now.

And there was just a patch of open field between her and the forest, beyond. All she had to do was make it to the treeline before anyone noticed she was gone.

* * *

The next morning, Beth slowly drifted awake in that church office. Opened her eyes to the flow of filtered light, straining through a thin layer of cloth, covering her face.

She gasped. Bolted upright. The moment she realized her hands were free, she yanked at that cloth. Tried to tug away what was there.

A bedsheet. She'd pulled it over herself while she was sleeping.

Sunlight filled the room. Cast shadows on the wall from the furniture. Brought out the scratches on the ancient, scuffed paneling. The outside of the church was beautiful—nineteenth century gothic stone. But the inside… it had some awful, 70s-era renovation, and had been left to rot, since. The whole place had a lingering, damp smell to it—like a basement. She'd barely noticed it, yesterday—was simply too  _tired_. But today, it was sticking in her nose. Making her nauseous.

She sat up. Looked around. Realized Maggie spent the night in here, with her—Beth could see the nest of blankets her sister slept in, in a pile on top of the old, avocado-colored rag rug.

And the office door was open, and Beth could hear people moving around, out beyond it.

* * *

When Beth made it to the treeline, she just kept going. Running as fast as she could—dizzy and tired and desperate.

She didn't stop when her side started aching. Whipped through trees that blurred together around her.

Hours passed. She had to slow down or she'd fall over on the dirt. Later, she'd realize she was lucky she didn't run into any walkers, with the noise she must've been making, that whole time.

It wasn't long before she  _did_  see some. The first one had its back to her. She grabbed a rock from the ground, and struck from behind. Sent it reeling. Kicked the inside of its knee, and struck again. Again.

The skull caved in. And Beth didn't stop to look at the body. Wasn't sure how more there might be, nearby.

She kept moving, all that day. It got dark, and still she pressed on.

No sleep. No food. No knife. No gun.

She didn't know where she was, and it was dark. Every moment, she had to make choices—where to go next. What to do now. And really... Beth didn't know what the right answers were.

Any turn could be the wrong turn. Any moment could be the last one.

* * *

Beth stepped through the office door—tentative and quiet. It opened into another sitting room—a bit larger, and set up with comfortable furniture. A place for bible studies and deacon's board meetings.

Rick was in one of those chairs, with a cup of something in his hand. He looked up. Registered her. Spoke, gently.

"Good morning," he said.

Carl was next to his father, eating a bowl of oatmeal. Beth couldn't see them, but she could hear Carol and Michonne—talking in the hallway.

And Maggie—Maggie was at the far wall. Kneeling on the carpet, with Beth's bag open—sorting and organizing. The things Beth gathered on her run were all spread out on the floor.

She felt her throat get tight.

" _Hey!_ "

She snatched the backpack right out of Maggie's hands. Ripped it away by the broken strap—one she'd tied a piece of rope around, so she could still use it.

The flask she'd used as a canteen fell out of the thing, and landed on the floor with a thud.

" _Get out of that_."

Maggie looked up at her. The expression on her face made Beth drop the bag, again.

"Sorry," Beth stammered, stepping towards the hall, "I'm… I'm sorry."

* * *

The night passed, and the light grew bright and strong, in the forest. The next day came, and Beth was still alive. She wasn't sure  _how_ , but she was.

And she could hear the sound of those ever-present cicadas. She was in the treeline, skirting the edge of a grassy field. Blackflies had been picking at her skin. Her hands were shaking.

Beth was dizzy. Dehydrated. Starving. She  _had_  to come up with a plan.

She sank down on the forest floor, next to a log. Buried her face in her knees. Breathed in hard. Ordered herself not to cry.

She was a grown-up, now—not a little kid.

And it was hard. She was hungry, and so  _tired_. She wanted to sleep, and she couldn't.

Instead, she rolled that log over, and started poking around for grubs in the damp earth beneath it.

* * *

Beth blew right past Michonne and Carol in the hallway—down past the Sunday-school classrooms. There were drawings on the walls. Crayon renditions of the walls of Jericho, tumbling down.

She needed some air. Had to get outside, for a moment.

She pushed through the first set of doors she saw, and found herself in a tiny courtyard.

There wasn't much in it. Dirt. Some tufts of crabgrass. A little sprig of columbine, growing wild in between some of the stones on the far wall.

There was a matchbox truck lying out on the dirt. A few rocks. Nothing else.

So she sat down, there, in front of the toy truck. Took in the quiet. It was an ugly, empty space—but it'd do. She could be alone and gather her thoughts.

This whole thing was going to be harder than she'd ever expected. All she'd thought about was getting back—finding the others, if she could. She never really considered what she'd do  _after_  it happened.

And the others… she could sense them watching her. Peering through the windows, at her. Carl, one time. Carol, another. Looking out at her. Beth met her eyes, and Carol laid a hand on the glass. Smiled to her, softly.

Beth stayed put. Tucked her knees under her chin. Wrapped her arms around her shins, and watched the sun move over the grass.

Finally, the door opened.

Maggie was there, with Judith on her hip.

"You wanna eat anything?"

"Nah," Beth said, "Not just now. Later."

"I can bring it out to you."

"Later…"

"Ok."

Maggie settled down next to her. Judith cooed, in her arms, and Maggie bounced her, gently.

And Beth found herself reaching for the baby. Maggie smiled as she handed her over.

Beth clung to Judy, and smelled her hair.

"She's gotten so  _big_ ," she said, "You think she remembers me?"

And Judith smiled at that sprig of columbine, growing out of the wall. Reached for the blue petals.

"Yeah… I do," Maggie said, "Nobody could forget."


	3. Expecting

_Chapter Three is finally ready. The story's starting to pick up, here. There should be something around ten chapters, in all. Thanks for taking this journey with me. I know Beth isn't the most popular character, and that you'd read my thoughts about her means a lot. This story's rather dark, in places. But I hope you can move through them with me, and into the light._

__**And in the spirit of that, I'll repost this reminder: this fic comes with a strong trigger warning. It frankly discusses violent themes, sexual and otherwise. It won't be graphic, but it will continually return to these themes. If you are concerned that would upset you, you shouldn't read the fic. I don't want to cause you any distress or anxiety. If you aren't sure if you should read it, you can PM me and I can answer any questions you have.** _ _

* * *

_Expecting_

Those first nights, Beth dreamed of her time in the forest. Of fleeing that barn—running all day, and all night. Hiding from the walkers that filtered through the trees, everywhere she went.

She'd crouch in the underbrush, and try not to breathe—watching their feet trudge by, inches from her face. The muddy hems of torn-up blue jeans. Stained sneakers. And she'd press her hands to her shirt—trying staunch the blood running down her trembling fingers. Waiting to see if the walkers could smell it over the stench of their own rot.

They never did.

So she'd keep on running. Drink from the streams. From puddles of dirty rainwater.

And Beth felt like one of the forest creatures. One of the smallest ones, that have to hide—like a rabbit. A mouse. A vole. Something little that creeps and scurries through the underbrush—just one step ahead of the inevitable.

Over and over, in those dreams, she'd be heading out along a ridge. And she'd lurch forward—twisting her ankle and pitching herself straight over the edge. Every time, she'd hit her head on a fallen branch—just like she did when it really happened. And she wouldn't stop moving, even then. She'd just claw her way upright, and keep on going. Dizzy. Lost.

And the feeling she'd had when she was out there always came back, in those dreams. Lingered even after she woke up. Just like she told Daryl all those weeks ago, Beth knew she was sure to die. And that knowledge made a sort of background to everything she saw and felt and did.

Somehow, it didn't upset her. Not exactly. She'd made it out of the barn—escaped the worst of it. So  _she_  got to choose where she was going—even when she was completely lost.

If she was going to die, she'd die on her own. No faceless man would climb up some ladder and put a bullet in her head.

So dying seemed ok, to Beth.

At least she was free.

* * *

When Beth woke up every morning, she'd think about how she'd made it to yet another day. Another day of rolling the dice, and seeing if anyone would die.

And that was the easiest part to deal with, really—she was almost  _used_  to that, by now. But everything— _everything_  at the church was hard.

Staying in one place was hard. Sleeping at night was hard. Trusting that things were finally safe, and no one was going to hurt her—that was  _incredibly_  hard.

She'd wake up in the night, and she'd be  _sure_  she'd heard a noise. Boots on the ground, coming closer. Other times, it sounded like a dog, panting. Or that damned  _tennis ball_ , hitting the barn walls, and making the planks shake.

She'd snap awake, dead certain there was something with her in the dark. Something that was about to grab her. Throw her down. Do what those men did.

But every time, it was nothing. Just the pastoral office, swathed in darkness. The sound of Maggie breathing—fast asleep on a pile of blankets, on the carpet beside the couch.

And even that wasn't the worst part. The very worst of it all was being with her friends.

At first, they looked at her like she was some kind of zoo exhibit. A rare bird everyone thought was extinct, but got rediscovered out of nowhere—then put on display. Those first few days, she was painfully aware of their eyes on her. On her mangled hands. Saw them putting two and two together. Reading the wounds like the signs they were.

 _Everyone_  knew what those marks meant. The bruises. The rope burns on her wrists. Even Carl. He was grown up, now, really, and nothing got by him.

Even though she'd been wearing Maggie and Carol and Michonne's spare clothes, Beth felt like she was naked.

And she was nervous—ill at ease. Everything felt…  _off_ , somehow. Her headache didn't fade, and sometimes she felt sick to her stomach. Threw up more than once—and was sure the others could hear her doing it.

She'd thought of trying to talk to Daryl, at first. But he avoided her—hadn't said a single word to her since she got back. Not even at the fence. And after that, he spent most of his time outside—working in the yard. And then, after a few days—when she figured he couldn't stay out there any longer… he  _left_. Went out on some day-long hunting trips. A bit later, he started ranging through the area. He'd be gone days at a time, come back to sleep, and head straight out again. He was mapping the area, the others said. Tracking the herds. Scouting for other groups. People who might pose a danger to them.

At the time, Beth didn't buy any of all that. She was pretty sure he was making excuses to stay away.

Everyone  _else_ , though—despite all that staring, and the awkwardness… after the first few days, they started to fall back into their old habits. So Beth fell back into hers, too. Spent most of her time with the other girls—Maggie and Michonne and Carol. Carl and Rick came in and out to help her look after Judith. Glenn was around—and he was nice enough—but they didn't really talk.

And Bob—he did his job, where Beth was concerned. Kept a careful eye on how she was healing up. Changed the dressings on her hands. Tried to talk to her, sometimes, when he did it—as if he thought it'd make her more comfortable.

And she figured that this was the way things were going to be, from now on. It seemed like everything in the world had changed, and nothing changed at all.

The others left her to her babysitting. They didn't ask her to walk the fence—though there were clusters of dead pushed up against it nearly every morning. They didn't ask her to go on supply runs. And that took her by surprise, at first—until she remembered. She'd  _never_  gone on runs, before. Never.

Funny sort of thing to forget.

If she offered, they'd probably laugh.

* * *

One night, when Beth was eight years old, her mother woke her up hours before sunrise.

The first thing she noticed was a faint jingle of the little fairy bells that lined the silk netting on her canopy bed. Then she was vaguely aware of a dim light, moving in the darkness. Of a hand on her arm.

Her mother's voice.

"Bethy…"

A warm hand, touching her hair.

Beth stirred in her sleep. Blearily opened her eyes, and saw Mom, smiling at her. Her silver earrings. Her hair, up in those loose braids she always wore. The sleeve of her blouse brushed against Beth's cheek—white and soft and billowing.

Mom always had a bohemian streak. Dad liked to say Beth took after her.

She sat up in her bed.

"Mom?"

Mom left a camp lantern on Beth's little vanity table. The light was harsh and strange—cast long shadows all over the walls, and ceiling. The silhouettes of her My Little Ponies, and stuffed animals. Her American Girldolls, all in a row.

And Mom smiled at her, again—broad and bright, as if she could hardly contain it. And right away, Beth knew why she was there.

It could only mean one thing—the  _baby horse_ was coming. The new foal they'd been waiting and waiting for—for what seemed like forever.

She'd been begging and begging to get to see the birth—no matter what time of day or night it happened.

"Is it  _Bella?_ "

Mom nodded.

" _It's time_."

* * *

Getting used to the church didn't take long—not like getting used to the people living inside it.

The second day, Beth spent some time wandering around. Checking it out. It was pretty small, really. There were the Sunday School classrooms, offices, and a kitchen. A basement set up to host coffee hours and spaghetti suppers and wedding receptions. There was a sanctuary, of course—but they didn't really use it for anything. The first few weeks, Beth didn't even go in there.

Other than that, there was just the courtyard and the bell tower. They figured the building got hit by lightning, some time since the walkers came—that would explain why the floor was all burned out, up there. So the tower was no good for keeping watch, and they had to keep a patrol in the yard.

The place had a strange sort of feeling, to Beth. It didn't get much sunlight, and it had this pervasive, dank smell—of mold and wet. She didn't think she'd ever be able to get used to. it

And that day, it filled her nose as she wandered down the hall, near her room—following the sound of voices, from the kitchen—Carol and Michonne, working on something, together.

The smell was worse, in this part of the church—and it mingled with something else—the smell of something stewing, on the gas range.

And she heard quiet laughter, down the hall in that kitchen. Michonne's voice:

"You know, my grandma used to can tomatoes every summer."

"Well," Carol said, "I guess now it's your turn."

Beth made it to the doorway, and saw her with Carol, leaning over something on the gas range. They both sensed her coming. Turned around at the same moment, and looked at her.

Carol smiled.

"Hey there."

Beth looked back at them. And there was an awkward silence.

A moment later, Michonne held up a slatted spoon, and tried to cover it:

"I've been recruited."

Beth stepped into the room from the door.

"… can I help?"

"Of course you can," Carol said, turning back to the stove, "We can use all the help we can get."

She grabbed something off there. Used pot holders to do it. A steaming pot, full of stewed tomatoes.

"Here, Glenn brought these back from a garden down the road. There's a whole lot of them, and they're bringing in more. You can get the peels off these ones that we've steamed. Use a towel and just scrub 'em right off."

"Ok."

She was very conscious of herself as she moved around the kitchen. Of each step in the process. Picking up a set of tongs. Pulling the first tomato out of the pot. The water was still boiling, a little, and the steam hit her face in a wave. And the skins slid off easy. It reminded her a little of that mud snake Daryl killed when they were together. How the skin came off of it, slimy and thin.

Just fell apart in your hands.

And Beth couldn't help but notice that Carol and Michonne stopped chatting, now that she was here.

Something about it... it made her want to escape. Run like she'd run all those days in the forest. But really, there was nowhere to  _go_. It was a little room with four, close walls that pushed in against her. Little windows on the far one, with checked curtains. There were two decorative plates, above them, with a prayer inscribed on them in gold:

_Hail Mary, Full of Grace  
_ _The Lord is With Thee  
_ _Blessed Art Thou Among Women  
_ _And Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus._

The words cut off, there. Beth could see the faded outlines of two more plates, on that wall. The nails that held them up. But they were gone.

She scrubbed at another tomato. The smell seeped into her nose with a steamy heat. It was too much. She was nauseous with it.

Her throat tightened, and she dropped the thing on the counter. Bolted for the door.

Beth barely made it out of the kitchen, and down the hall. She tasted bile, and prayed quietly to herself that she could just get outside before anything came up. She couldn't bear to puke in the hallway, and have the others clean it up off the floor.

And she tossed open the door, and threw herself out into the yard. Fresh air spilled over her face as she collapsed on the dirt, and gagged into the grass.

* * *

Beth's mother opened the screen door, and Beth rushed through—right under her arm and onto the porch beyond it. And she almost ran straight for the stable, then—even though it was pitch dark.

Her mom laughed, at that. Came down the porch stairs, with the lantern in her hand.

"Hold up, there, kiddo."

Everything looked strange, this time of night—there was a hollow, blue light in the trees, way off across the fields. It must've been four in the morning, or so. Beth was never out this early. And it was exciting—getting to do something that wasn't usually allowed.

And her mom led her to the stable—where she could see warm, flickering lights through the open door. When they got closer she could hear voices. Maggie, Shawn, and Daddy. Patricia and Otis.

Some of her earliest memories were of holding Daddy's hand and going to see the horses. When they got to the stable, he'd lift her up in front of the stalls, and she'd get to feed them bits of stale bread. Some carrots, or a tuft of dandelions.

You had to hold your palm out flat, when you did it—so they wouldn't bite your fingers by mistake.

And Beth—she was always a little scared of  _riding_  the horses. They were so big, and she was so small. That was more Maggie's thing, than hers.

But she loved them, all the same.

Mom paused in the doorway. Leaned over Beth, so she could talk to her eye to eye.

"Now stay  _quiet_  in there, Beth," she said, "Stay out of Dad's way, and just watch, ok?"

Beth nodded. Her mom smiled and patted her cheek.

"This is going to be  _special_ ," she said.

* * *

Beth wiped at her mouth. Tried not to look down at the mess on the ground—in case it made her start up all over again.

It was only seconds before she felt a hand on her shoulder. Glenn. She sensed movement behind his arm—at her back, by the door. Carol, or Michonne, or both. Come to watch and see if she was alright.

Glenn patted her arm. Looked down at her with concern on his face.

"You ok, Beth?"

And she looked at the grass, then. At the mess of what she'd eaten that morning, seeping into the ground.

"I'm fine," she said.

* * *

The moment they walked into the stable, Beth sensed something was wrong. It was something about the feeling in the air. The tone of her father's voice, as he talked Patricia through the birth.

Everyone was leaning in close—Shawn and Maggie. Otis. They were watching Dad and Patricia  _doing_  something in one of the stalls. Beth couldn't see Bella too well—everyone was standing between her and whatever was going on. She could just see one of her back hooves. A bit of her tail, where it caught the light of the lanterns in the darkness.

"Patricia—the saline."

Dad and Patricia were rooting through their supplies. Mom stepped closer. Looked down, into the stall. Dad was  _doing_  something, then—something that didn't make any noise. And everyone was quiet. Watching.

Finally, Dad looked up. Met her eyes, a second, through the crowd of the others.

"Otis _, get Beth out of here_."

Dad  _never_  sounded frantic. She'd only heard him raise his voice a handful of times her whole  _life_ —and he didn't raise it now. But everyone always seemed to do what he said.

"C'mon, honey," Otis said, as he came up and took her by the hand.

Just like that, off they went. Maggie and Shawn got to stay. And Beth didn't question that—they were fourteen and fifteen, now, and that seemed so  _grown up_ , to her.

Beth was used to being the baby. It was a role she'd had her whole life.

After a moment, Otis scooped her up in his strong arms. And he took her the long way around—towards the back door, all the way across the stable. And she knew he was trying to keep her from seeing whatever was going on, at the front. And when he spoke to her, she could feel his breath on her cheek.

"Lemme take you to the kitchen, and we'll have some ice cream."

* * *

Sometime during the second week, Maggie stopped sleeping in the pastoral office. Went back to one of the Sunday School classrooms, with Glenn.

So Beth was on her own, again.

She didn't know how to feel about that. A lot of her liked the quiet. And the rest—the rest felt kind of empty.

So the pastoral office became Beth's room, somehow. Her space. She spent a lot of time in there—just sitting by herself, or looking after Judith.

The afternoon on the day Maggie packed up, Beth took Judy in there. Sat with her on the ugly, green sofa she used as a bed. And Judith—she was crying so hard she was turning red.

" _Shhhh_ , Judy."

She was teething, and there was nothing Beth could really do to calm her down. The noise was loud enough you could hear it in the yard—all of the others were out at the fence, working on a cluster of walkers the sound had drawn in.

Looking out the window, she could see them, out there. Bob. Maggie. Rick. Carl. Stabbing at the shapes on the other side of the fence—just like when they were back at the prison.

Beth turned away. Scooped Judy up, and she clung to her shirt. Cried into it—only stopping to breathe.

"Shhhhh," Beth said, "I know, I  _know_."

She put a finger in Judith's mouth—just the tip, where it wasn't bandaged. And she massaged her gums, as best she could.

"I'm  _sorry_."

You really couldn't blame Judith. Everyone wants to cry when they're hurting.

And as Beth paced over the rug on the ground, she thought about Maggie. All the stuff she'd been using to sleep was packed up, now. She'd moved back to Glenn, and a normal routine.]

And Beth couldn't really blame  _her_ , either.

Everyone wants someone to love.

* * *

Bella died, that night in the stable. And it was touch-and-go, for a while, with the foal. But she made it.

Daddy tried to explain it to Beth. Everything has a time, he said. Life on a farm is  _always_  like that. There's a time to sew, and a time to reap. A time to be born, and a time to die.

The afternoon after it happened, Beth's mom took her to meet the new foal. She was a pretty shade of brown. Had good proportions. Beth decided she liked her, right away. Reached out—hoping she'd come over on those wobbly legs, and sniff her hand.

But as she did it, the stable door banged in the wind, and the foal startled. Rushed into the back of the stall, and hid.

Mom chuckled, at that.

"She's really skittish, this one."

And she was—always would be. It's why they ended up naming her Nelly. Nervous Nelly.

Beth looked to her mother. Watched her, watching Nelly in the stall.

"Is it 'cause she don't got a mom?"

Mom shook her head. Didn't turn, but stroked Beth's hair, a moment. So Beth pressed on.

"Cause it's  _true_ ," Beth said, "She  _don't_  got one. Or a dad, either."

At the time, Beth was a bit unclear on how these things worked. She knew she'd never heard anyone mention a daddy horse. So she figured that somehow you didn't  _need one_ , maybe.

Nelly inched forward, again. And Beth reached out her hand, and hoped she'd come for it.

"There's no way to tell why she's like that—not for sure," Mom said, "Sometimes things are… just the way they are..."

Beth nodded. Tried to take that in. And in that moment, Nelly came up to her. Sniffed her hand, and Beth giggled.

Mom stroked her hair again, and—out of nowhere—she corrected Beth's grammar, like she sometimes did:

"Remember—it's not ' _don't got'_ , Beth—it's ' _doesn't have_.'"

* * *

One evening on the third week, Beth sorted through her things. She'd been keeping them hidden behind the sofa in the pastoral office—all stuffed in the bag she'd carried on the road. The one with the broken strap, tied up with a piece of rope.

Earlier that afternoon, Michonne brought her some new supplies. Her own hairbrush, and a nice toiletry case. Some pretty t-shirts with lace on the hems. Size extra-small, petite. And it was a good thing she did—a lot of Beth's stuff from the road was so beat up, there was no point in keeping it.

So she had to decide what she was going to hang onto, and what she was going to throw away.

As she held the bag, she realized she really couldn't bear to  _part_  with anything. She'd  _earned_  this stuff, and it was  _hers_. The engraved flask—full of water. The plastic compass. The AAA Travel Map from the rest stop on Rt. 11. Her bowie knife—the one she'd pulled off a walker she killed. The 9mm Smith and Wesson, and the cartridges.

Like all those bumper stickers used to say, you'd have to pry that out of her cold, dead hands.

There was other stuff. A half-eaten granola bar. A ziplock bag with a crushed peach in it. There was mold on the skin—scummy, blue stuff that smeared against the inside of the ziplock. She didn't open it for fear of what it would smell like—but she didn't throw it away. Instead, she stuffed it in a desk drawer. Way done in the bottom.

Below that, there was some of her old clothes. The flannel shirt she'd been wearing when she came in. She'd washed it, since then—but it'd been worn long and hard before she'd ever found it, out on the road. It went in that drawer, too.

And then... then her blue jeans. Beth held them in her hands. Looked at them, a long moment.

She didn't get those on the road. They were  _hers_. Had always been hers—since they were new. You couldn't say that about much, in this world.

She'd had them on the farm, and wore them the entire time, since. There was a hole in the knee. And the denim had gotten so it was real thin in places, over time. But she'd kept on with them as long as she could.

She really couldn't wear them any longer. They were completely soiled with blood and filth. The fabric was almost in shreds.

Her mom bought them for her one August—right before school started for her sophomore year—the last year of school she'd ever have. And it was a good day. Just the two of them. Beth remembered being excited about it. They didn't just go to the little mall on the other side of the freeway. They drove to the  _big_  mall with the glass rotunda, a good hour and a half from home.

And they had food court sushi, and talked about what classes Beth signed up for. And she said wanted to start doing more with the music. Not just piano lessons. Glee club. Maybe try out for  _The Sound of Music_ , in the spring.

She wouldn't be little Beth, then. She could be  _Liesl_ , and sing, and people would watch her.

Maria was best, of course… but she couldn't try for that. The idea made her blush even to think of it. Liesl was enough.  _More_  than enough. She was the oldest of all the Van Trapps. She had a  _boyfriend_ , even if it didn't exactly work out. And Liesl—she was sixteen-going-on-seventeen. And Beth—Beth was going to be fifteen for another two and a half months.

"I dunno if I should try  _out_ , though," she said, sipping on a bubble tea through a plastic straw.

Mom raised an eyebrow.

"Well... why not?"

Beth shrugged. Didn't say anything. Somehow, she knew she really didn't have to.

Mom toyed with her chopsticks. Picked at the sheet of fake, plastic grass that came with the sushi. Picked it up between them. Gestured with it while she gave one of those mom-speeches you sometimes get:

"Beth, that's not the way to do things. You gotta  _try_. Always. Not for your father and me. For  _you_."

Beth nodded. And mom broke the tension. Got that mischievous smile on her face—the one she sometimes had—and flung that sushi grass right at her.

In the end, that whole talk went nowhere. Led to nothing. The auditions didn't even  _happen_. She'd been practicing for what felt like ages, but the walkers came. Things went bad fast, and she never got a chance to do it.

But she still had the jeans.

And as she went to put them with the other things—the useless things she couldn't bear to throw away—she felt something in the pocket. Something hard. And she reached in, and pulled it out.

An acorn. And Beth remembered—she'd grabbed it off the ground, on the way to the church.

It was from the tree that owns itself.

Somehow, it made it all rush back. Everything that'd happened since the prison fell. Being taken. Being held in that barn. Those men—the faceless men moving just beyond her blindfold.

And Beth realized something. All at once. The symptoms were getting harder to ignore. The vomiting. The nausea.

Her period never came.

Somehow, taking out that acorn was all it took to make it real in her mind. She held it in her palm, and whispered to herself—told herself what she already knew. Straight up, so she'd have to deal with it:

"I'm pregnant," Beth said.


	4. The Hanged Man

**Chapter 4: The Hanged Man**

* * *

_Hello folks-I'm so sorry for the long delay on this one. I've been away from home for six weeks or so, and before that, I was having some trouble writing. I'm starting to feel like I might be losing the TWD-fic-writing-bug, a bit. I'm interested in this story, but I'm not sure if I should keep going or let it go or what. It's a lot of work to do these. I love sharing them with you all, but the fandom feels like it's sort of tired out by in-fighting and what have you. It isn't inspiring. I don't know what I should do, here-finish or let it go._

_In any case, here is chapter four. I hope you enjoy it-and no matter what happens, it is a pleasure to have something to share with you, today._

* * *

_The Hanged Man_

_I always wanted a child_.

It was true. One of the truest things Beth ever said.

She'd loved dolls her whole life. Not Barbie dolls—she never really cared about pretty dresses or makeup or things like that. Baby dolls. American Girls. Ones she could pretend had families, and lived lives.

She'd play house on rainy days—pretend the barn kittens were babies. Chase them around on the dirt. And if she caught any, she'd try to swaddle them up in dishcloths, and rock them.

So now, Beth found herself overcome with memories of home—and her old fascination with new life.

When she was about ten years old, she started begging her parents for a baby brother. Someone she could hold and look after and teach things—someone smaller and younger who might even look up to her, someday.

But after she'd been at it a while, Daddy sat her down for one of his Talks. The ones where he explained how things worked, and why. He settled in next to her on the living room sofa, and very gently told her it wasn't his time for having babies. Not anymore.

It was like all those other lessons. Like when Bella died, and Daddy said it was simply time for her to go. Like those verses he'd read from the Bible, while she worked away in the kitchen. The words from the Psalms, that she always remembered:

_"I choose the appointed time;_ _it is I who judge uprightly."_

So there wasn't going to be a baby brother. Daddy put a hand on her arm, when he told her. And she could remember his face, even now. How much  _younger_  it seemed, all those years ago. Clean shaven, with a few brown streaks still left in his hair.

And he pulled her in close, against his shoulder. Held her, as he taught her what he wanted her to know. Did for her what  _she_  wanted to do for the baby who would never come.

"Everything has a time," he said, "And these things only happen when the time is right."

* * *

Beth spent days running through the woods—trying to escape from the men who took her. And even as she did it, she really expected them to hunt her down, and kill her.

But she kept on trying. Did her best to hide—stuck to the thickest part of the woods, away from where anyone would go. It was harder to do than she expected—even in rural Georgia, there were manmade things all  _over_ the place. Dirt roads and gravel driveways, leading to country houses with dark windows. And beyond them, abandoned farm fields, stretching out and out into misty nothingness—thick and overgrown with weeds.

In the forests, the power lines cut their way through the trees—the wires snapped and drooping off the poles like long-forgotten party decorations.

And all that—it was stuff people had made. So there could be people  _anywhere_ , really—in those fields and homes and roadways. It all  _seemed_  empty, but there could be anything waiting around any corner.

The men who took her, or men just like them.

Again and again, Beth came out of the woods onto the same set of railroad tracks—old ones, heading off who-knows-where. But she didn't even trust those. Someone could be using them to navigate the woods—to find their way. So every time she crossed them, she moved back into the brush.

She used to think there were decent people out there. That she could find them. That it was worth the chance.

Now, she knew better.

* * *

After finding the acorn in her jeans pocket, Beth kept it with her all the time. Held it, sometimes. Took to turning it around in her fingers, when she felt nervous.

Sometimes, she even held it as she slept. She didn't know why.

And that afternoon, she put it on the window sill, when she went to do dishes in the kitchen. The curtains stirred in a gentle breeze, blowing through the window. And there voices off in the distance—muted by the wind in the trees—so faint, at first, that she could barely hear them.

Then, they got louder:

"Just  _think_ , Daryl. You can't just pretend that nothing happened."

Carol—with Daryl, out in the yard. He was back, again.

Beth couldn't see them. But she froze in place, anyway—holding a dish in her hand, scummy with leftover oatmeal. Held her breath—as if they could tell she was there, and catch her listening.

" _You think I need this_? You  _know_  I've been bustin' my ass to keep us—"

"I know," Carol said, slowly, "I know… But just… just think. Think of what it's like for her…"

The voices faded, then. They were walking away from the window. And Beth felt dizzy. Leaned against the kitchen counter, so it dug into her side. A rush of feeling went through her that she didn't fully understand.

Beth let the dish in her hand drop beneath the water.

Carol… she'd been coming to sit with her, sometimes, in the evenings. Didn't say much, really. But she sought her out.

And when they stood together—in the kitchen, or the hallways—sometimes she'd touch her hair.

And there was more. It all came rushing back at once… Michonne brought her things every time she went on a run. Better soap. Nicer clothes. Candy. Tea. Tampons.

Maggie did that kind of thing, too—of  _course_  she did. And in the mornings, when Beth got up, she'd find her sister waiting for her. Sitting on the carpet—just outside her bedroom door.

The women—her friends—they'd all be watching after her. Waiting. She didn't know how she didn't see it, before. Didn't realize.

Beth looked down into the water. The soap bubbles floating around on the surface, bursting one by one.

And she grabbed her acorn off the sill. Closed her fist around it—hard, so it dug into her palm. The walls felt too close. Claustrophobic. The smell of the dish soap—it seemed  _stronger_ , somehow. It was coating the inside of her throat.

She had to get out of here.

* * *

Beth had been running for three days before she realized nobody was chasing her.

It hit her all at once, when she came on the edge of the forest yet  _again_ , that afternoon. It must've been the tenth time she'd done it. And she looked out into the grass beyond the trees. Let out a hard breath.

This was pointless.

No one was coming. They'd have caught her by now, if they were looking. She'd been starving herself in the wilderness for nothing.

She sank onto the ground, at a knot of old tree roots. The heat clung around her skin. The gnats hovered in her hair. And she felt so  _tired_. She hadn't slept in so, so long.

Beth looked down at the dirt. The roots, disappearing into it, and the broken bits of twigs and acorns mashed against the ground.

If she stayed out here much longer, she was going to die.

And those men… they  _knew that_. It was clear as day to her. So they left her to die on her own, out here—figured she didn't need any help from them to do it.

A cold knot started twisting up somewhere in her stomach. Pulled itself tight. Her hands were trembling with a feeling she barely recognized.

Anger wasn't a part of her world, before all this.

Suddenly—just like that—she wasn't tired anymore. Even though her mouth was dry and her head was spinning. All she wanted to do was push forward. To keep moving.

She'd show them.

So Beth forced herself up by her palms. Swayed on her knees—stumbled a bit. Grabbed the side of a tree, and almost sank down on the ground, again.

But she didn't fall. Just pushed herself forward. Looked down at her clumsy feet. And she wanted to shout at her boots to move faster. Scream something, at them—something  _really bad_. The worst kind of swear words she could think of. Stuff that would make her dad shrink away if he heard it come out of her mouth.

She tried to do it. Sputtered a bit, before a thin, reedy whisper came out:

" _Fuck this.._."

It was the best she could do.

But she kept on moving. Pushed the tree branches aside. The sun spilled over her shoulders, and she made her way into the light.

* * *

Beth clung to that acorn, and let the kitchen door slam shut behind her. Walked fast down the hall, and tried to forget about Carol, and Daryl, and what she'd overheard.

And she found herself heading directly for the church courtyard. The ugly patch of dirt she'd gone to, once before—when Maggie went through her bag, a couple weeks ago.

She pushed the door open with one palm. Somehow, she'd expected the courtyard to be empty—but the moment she got out there, she saw Carl—with Judith playing on the ground, at his side.

Mostly, there was just dirt for her to crawl on. There wasn't much grass—some patches of it here and there on the bald earth. Some rocks. That single sprig of columbine, crawling up the cool, grey stone.

It was a sad place to play.

Beth went to sit beside the two of them. Felt the warm breeze on her arms as she settled down on the dirt. Carl looked up at her, under the brim of that hat of his.

"I've been trying to get Judith to walk… and she'll sorta do it if I hold her upright. You know—by the arms."

"She's still a bit young for walkin'," Beth said, "I mean… don't you think?"

He shrugged.

"I dunno. I thought, you know, maybe…"

And Beth understood. He wanted to get his sister on her feet as soon as possible. Get her so she could do things on her own.

Run, when she had to.

And just then, Judith came on the toy truck on the dirt. The really old one that was lying there, randomly, the last time Beth came out to this place. Judy clutched at it with a clumsy fist. Banged it against a stone, for a bit.

When she pulled it up to her mouth, Carl let out a chuckle.

"No-no-no," Carl said, leaning over to grab the thing, "Don't  _eat that_."

Beth smiled, then. Back home, she'd never had toy trucks—and she never tried to  _eat_  any, that she remembered. But she'd had stuffed animals, the My Little Ponies. The dollhouse Mom put together with Maggie and Shawn, for one of her birthdays. There were toys—toys  _everywhere_. She'd had so many. So much.

But that single toy on the ground— _that's_  what Judy got. A dirty truck in an empty yard.

And that was no  _good_. Kids need more than a patch of dirt to play in. They need something nice. Something green.

That gave Beth an idea.

She leaned over. Dug a hole with her one hand. The wounds were healed over, mostly—just red welts, now. Green bruises. So it didn't really hurt to do it. A little, maybe—but not like it would've, before.

When the hole was deep enough, she dropped the acorn inside. Smoothed the dirt over it with her palm, just so. She wanted it to be nice.

Carl was watching her. Got what she was doing right away.

"Do you think it'll grow?" he asked.

And she looked down at the ground, there. The loose patch of earth, hiding her acorn away.

"I really don't know what'll happen."

* * *

Beth spent hours wandering out in the farm fields, beyond the forest. She watched a kestrel on the thermals, up above. Felt the wind on her face. Lost herself in grass that was so tall it brushed against her belt buckle. And the world was full of green smells. Summer smells of growing plants, that reminded her of home.

She'd been avoiding the roads, before. But now she was looking for something—anything—that could tell her where she was. Where she should go next.

And she found a dirt track—followed it for a couple miles, where it met up with paved road. So she picked a direction, and kept on walking.

Walking, walking, walking… it all started to blur together, until the sun got low in the sky. The light was orange, on the horizon, and the clouds were rimmed with pinks and purple. It was almost unnaturally quiet. She came on some burned-out houses along a lonely stretch of country road—dead oak trees overhanging the asphalt, with charred, black branches.

Last year's dead leaves were ankle deep, there—blown in from somewhere else, beyond the fire.

And after a while, she saw something in the distance—through those dead trees. It cast a long shadow on the ground.

A railroad bridge, arching above the street—the stone charred and sooty, so it obscured the graffiti, painted there.

And as she got close, she saw something hanging from it, on the far side—dangling over the street, below. A lone walker, hanging off the bridge from a noose, silhouetted against the dying light.

Before she got much further, it started twitching on the rope—trying to get at her. Straining its arms for her as she looked up at it from below.

* * *

Later on, Beth went to sit by the church fence—watching Maggie kill some walkers that came up on them during the day.

Maggie had shown up in her room, earlier. She'd gone to lay down, in there—away from the others, where she could sleep. And Maggie… she practically  _pulled_  her off the couch. Told Beth she wanted her to come out here and keep her company.

And when they were heading out through the hallway, Maggie handed her a book of crossword puzzles, of all things. Told her she wanted to solve some, together, while they were out in the yard.

So Beth found herself sitting on the ground—nearly swallowed up in the tall grass, watching her sister stabbing corpses while she filled out the crossword with a pencil.

Beth looked over the clues. Tried to pick one. As she did it, she heard Maggie lunge. That little breath she let out when she hit a walker in the face. The squishy splatter as she tugged the sharpened stick out of its eye socket. And the dull thud when it landed on the ground beyond the fence.

Maggie brushed her hair back. Caught her breath.

"What's next?" she asked.

Beth looked down at the booklet on her lap.

"A six letter word for "hollow."

"Hmm…" Maggie said, looking over the fence—trying to pick out which one to strike next.

"How about 'vacant'?"

Beth checked.

"Nah," she said, "It doesn't fit."

"… 'empty'?"

"That's five letters."

Maggie made a little noise. Started eyeing the walkers, straining their arms at her through the fence. She chose one, and started to take aim.

Beth closed the crossword book, and stood up.

"Let me do it," she said.

Maggie paused, mid-thrust. Looked over at her sister.

"What?"

"You don't gotta be out here, doing this. Lemme take care of the walkers."

Maggie looked at her, and somehow—Beth didn't know how—she started feeling kind of angry.

"I did at the  _prison_ , right? When we first got there. I know how."

"Are you sure…?"

"Yeah. I wanna do it."

Maggie paused. Turned her head to the side, a little. And the look on her face… it was hard to read. She'd noticed it on Maggie a lot, lately, when they talked. Like she wanted to say something—but somehow, she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

Finally, Maggie nodded.

"Ok…"

Beth handed over the book of puzzles. After a moment, Maggie took it. Stuffed it in her pocket. And she held that sharpened stick out for her—long, and jagged, and slick with blood. When Beth took it, Maggie stepped closer. Looked at her steadily.

"Be careful."

As Beth clutched the thing in one hand—testing its weight—she nodded.

"Always."

And Maggie turned to go. Took Beth's free hand, as she walked by. Squeezed it, gently.

With the bruises fading, it only hurt a little bit.

* * *

Beth looked up at the hanged man, and he looked down at her.

Way up above like that, he couldn't hurt her. He was just dangling there, off a rusty bridge with graffiti scrawled all over it. She could see where the birds had picked holes in his cheeks. Torn at his t-shirt—a washed-out, dirty blue, with the logo for a rock band Beth didn't know.

His hair was dark blonde. Wavy. Long-ish, for a man. He looked a little older than Beth—but not  _too_  much. Maybe twenty or twenty-one—like Zack was, when he died. And looking at him, up there, Beth wondered if she should be calling him a man, at all.

Maybe he was just a boy, really.

And really… he even  _looked_  a little like Zack, to Beth. Or like Zack might look now—weeks and weeks after he died.

He strained his hands for her. Without thinking, she raised hers, in turn. As if she could reach him. As if they could touch.

This boy. He must've killed himself—just like she'd almost done, two years ago, when they shot her mom at the barn.

Hanging was probably a better way to do it than she'd tried. Cutting your wrists… you have to push through all that skin and flesh and tendon. You have to build up more nerve than Beth could muster, when it came down to it.

But this guy… all he had to do is jump.

She stepped forward, to get a better look at him. And her boot hit something, on the broken asphalt. She looked down at it.

A pair of bent, wire-rimmed glasses—both lenses cracked, and a bit of tape holding the bridge together.

The boy's.

That tape told a story. He'd broken them a few times before this, but he'd fixed them up each time—best he could. Kept on trying and trying and trying—until he gave up. Then they fell off his face when the rope broke his neck. They landed on the ground below, and the glass shattered.

She bent down. Picked them up. Held them in her blood-caked, dirty hands.

And he made a strangled, choked-off sound at her. Swayed in the air above her head. His  _neck_. It was swollen. The rope was dug in so deep she couldn't see it, in places. Her hand tightened on his glasses.

"I'm  _sorry_ …" she whispered.

And all that exhaustion started to wear on her again. Came back overher in a heavy wave. Her vision blurred a little, and she swayed on her feet. And all she wanted to do was sit down, for a while. Close her eyes, and sleep.

But no. She couldn't. If she gave in and did that… she might not wake up again.

And besides… he was up there. That poor boy. And she couldn't let him stay that way.

So she'd go cut him down. Try to do something decent with his body.

Then, if she had to… she could die when she was finished.

* * *

Beth jabbed at a face on other side of the fence—through the wrought iron, and the concertina wire. An old man in grey overalls. A button-down shirt, rolled up at the elbows, that must've been stained and dirty long before he'd ever turned.

He landed on the grass, slumped against the base of the fence. Still dressed to spend a fine, summer afternoon working on his truck.

Beth hated killing walkers.

She didn't understand how Maggie and Daryl and the others could just take them out without thinking. They were  _people_ , once—and she couldn't seem to ever forget it. So she hesitated, sometimes, when they came at her—just stood there, and watched them come.

It happened a few times, when they were on the run from the farm. And back then, someone would always step in, and save her. T-Dog, outside one of their safehouses, when one darted out from behind the garden shed. He pinned the thing against the wall, and stabbed it with his hunting knife. Another time, it was Glenn who saved her, when they got stuck on the side of the road with a flat. He killed it with the tire iron he'd been using to screw the wheel on. Lunged right from the pavement the moment he sensed a movement. And an instant later, he was bashing in the walker's skull.

It was like he didn't think about it all.

And she knew they all thought she held back because she was scared. That the dead frightened her so much she couldn't move. But that wasn't it. She wasn't afraid of much, really. Not anymore.

It was that they had such sad faces. Such lost, lonely eyes.

So the others got used to it—but not Beth. Even now. She'd kept count of how many she killed. This afternoon, it was seven—so far. She'd have to circle the perimeter to check, but she thought there was just another one or two to go.

And as if it could hear her thinking, a shape in the distance shambled its way over to meet her. It must've heard the old man fall. The silhouette came bounding out from behind a stand of trees, facing the sun.

Beth braced, preparing herself to strike—but in that moment, the light shifted, and she saw it more clearly.

A young girl. She might have been pretty, once. Long, dark hair and olive skin. A calico dress, hanging over a swollen, pregnant belly.

This girl must've been nine months along, when she died.

Beth stopped in her tracks. Froze. It pulled up close. Clutched at the concertina wire, and tore its fingers on the sharp edges. And Beth stared that walker in the face. Stood still.

It let out a strangled cry. Pressed forward. Pierced its shoulder with one of those long pikes, and kept on pushing. There was a slimy sound of blood and muscle giving way against the wood.

Beth shook herself out of it. Struck hard and fast.

The thing drooped against the fence with the others.

* * *

Beth climbed up the sloping embankment, thinking of how she could get the boy off the rope, when she had nothing but her own two hands to do it with.

It was steep, and she was tired. At one point, she tugged herself up with her hands. Half-crawling, up the sharp slope.

"Just keep on going…" she whispered. And she grabbed a root, and pulled herself up.

And she did. Pushed on and found herself face-to-face with the old, split wood on the railroad tracks.

She pulled herself upright—and looked around. And she saw it immediately.

A green lump, in the middle of the bridge. Right on the tracks.

A backpack.

His  _bag_. The hanged man—he'd left his  _bag_  up there.

" _Oh_ …"

She rushed over. The sound of him growling on his rope filled the air. For the moment, she didn't listen.

Her hands were shaking. It took her a moment to work the zipper. But the weight of the bag in her hands told her there was a lot inside.

A gun. A 9mm Smith and Wesson. A spare clip—fully loaded. A box of cartridges. A hunting knife. A lighter. A  _compass_. All packed in together—like he'd stuffed everything he'd had in there before he jumped.

And there was more. Food. Canned tuna. Three MREs.

She ran her fingers over the labels, and let out a sigh.

" _Oh_ …"

_Thank God._

There was a silver flask, with the initials  _JSR_  on it. She sloshed it around, and it sounded nearly empty. She spun open the cap. Sniffed the strong stuff inside, and made a grimace. She didn't know enough about liquor to figure out what kind it was—just that it was strong.

Beth was more than done with that sort of thing, so she poured it out on the ground.

But she took the knife. Went over to the edge. Looked down. He looked up at her, from below.

And she sawed at the rope. It took a long time. Finally, it got down to a few threads. And all at once—while she was still sawing away—they tore on their own.

The body fell. The legs hit the ground and crumpled—shattering under his own weight. His skin split open like a piece of rotten fruit, and a wet sound filled the air as the soft tissue splattered on the pavement.

She stared down at him—frozen in place, like she couldn't look away. His hands were still moving—his head—even though most of him was smashed to bits.

And looking down at that mess, Beth didn't know what she'd expected to happen. She was just so exhausted, and she'd been trying to help.

So of course she'd made things worse.

But she picked up the bag. It was heavy. Full of things she needed.

Immediately, as she tried to sling it over her shoulders, she realized one of the straps was broken. It flopped to one side, and pulled her off-kilter.

So she unknotted what was left of the hangman's rope, where it was dangling from the bridge. And she tied it onto the backpack, so she could carry it on her way.

* * *

Beth dragged the last of the bodies towards the pile she'd made—out a ways down the road from the church. She had to burn them—like they always did. But she didn't want the fire too close.

There were some more walkers—shapes down the road, but they hadn't noticed her. She had plenty of time to take care of this and get back before they'd ever manage to reach her.

It was hard work. The bodies were heavy. But it never occurred to her to ask someone else to do it.

She'd killed them. It was her job.

And Beth saved the pregnant woman for last—pulled the body off the fence, and dragged it by the ankles.

She needed to get her up on top of the others. So Beth leaned down to grab onto her—roll her over onto the pile of arms and legs. And the body—it she had trouble getting it to stay on the edge of the pile. It rolled down again.

So Beth knelt down, and grabbed it. Rolled it up onto the others. Clutched the swollen belly, to get some purchase.

The skin under her hand moved.

Beth gasped. Tugged her arm away so fast she threw herself backwards. Tumbled over on the ground.

She stared at the body. The stomach, covered with that soiled, calico dress.

A  _kick_. It was a kick.

Beth turned away. Put a hand to her mouth. Looked up at the trees. Felt tears stinging in her eyes.

"No," she whispered, " _No_. That's  _not gonna be me_."

It was a lovely afternoon. Not too hot. The sky was blue. And the wind was pulling at the leaves, up above. Just like it always had—before the walkers. Before Beth was ever born. As if nothing at all had ever changed, and never would.

She shook her head. Whispered to herself, again:

" _Not me_ …"

And she looked down the road. Past her gas can. Off into the world, where her friends went on runs. Brought her things she needed, while she waited safely behind.

And she thought of her mother. What she'd told her at the mall, when she'd bought her that favorite pair of jeans:

_You gotta try. Always. Not for me or your father or anybody else. For you._

Beth knew what she had to do next.

She left the gas can on the ground. Walked towards the road, and headed out on a supply run of her own.


	5. Bride

**Chapter 5: Bride**

* * *

_I've got chapter five for you, today. I'm still muddling through—I'll try to continue, and just see how it goes step by step. Thank you so much for sticking with me._

_I'm sorry I've been so bad about replying to reviews. I really value what you have to say, it's just that I'm having a hard enough time writing the fic itself... I lose track of everything I need to do. I fell really badly about it. I don't mean to be so recalcitrant. Your responses do help me keep on task and working on this, so I appreciate them very, very much._

* * *

_Bride:_

The rain was falling hard—so hard the water spilled over the girders and down the sides of the railroad bridge, like a waterfall. Every so often, some of it hit the concrete underhang where Beth was hiding—and it would spray across her cheek, and arms.

But for the most part, she was dry and comfortable—wrapped up in a flannel shirt the hanged man left in his backpack. And she had that backpack in her arms—hugged it close, like a doll. Rested her head against one side. And on one of the pockets, in front of her face, were some embroidered initials. The same ones she saw on his flask:  _JSR_.

She kept hearing sounds from the pavement, way down below. Walkers, moving through the dim light, milling slowly past her hiding place. The bridge amplified their moans, as they wandered around beneath it. Like the voices of the men who took her, echoing off the barn rafters, when she was tied up in that hayloft. How they'd talk and talk until it all melded together into a dull blur—as incoherent as the walkers, down below.

The sound of them brought her back there. To the hayloft. She remembered it. The heat—way up in those rafters. The hazy light through that blindfold. The footsteps, down below.

But that place was far, far away. Now, it was all cool and dark, with the rain beating down all around her. And over time, the sounds of the walkers faded away, as they disappeared into the rainy darkness.

She shifted in place. Clutched the bag against her body, and felt the weight of it against her chest. And it was ok. Nothing could reach her, up here.

For the first time in a long, long time, Beth was safe.

She was tired. So very, very tired. And slowly, the sound of the heavy rain began to lull her under. And as she drifted away, the noise of passing walkers floated in and out, over time.

It made her think about that boy, who'd hanged himself.  _JSR_. She wondered about him. Who was missing him. Who loved him, before all this.

How the things he left behind meant she had a chance.

If he  _hadn't_  killed himself… if he kept on trying, she would have died.

And life was always  _like_  that. Even before. Daddy's first wife, Josephine—she died of cancer. It tore her to pieces and ripped the life right out of her. Went straight into her bones, then killed her hard and fast.

But then… Dad married Mom. And Beth was born a year later.

So that's why Beth existed to  _begin_  with. Because somebody died a bad death. Because Maggie lost her mom, and Daddy lost his wife.

The good and the bad were so tangled up together, you could hardly tell the difference.

* * *

Two years before all that, Beth was fifteen years old, and lying in her bed. She'd never known anything but safety, and had no expectation that that would ever change.

It was early—the light was pale blue on the floral wallpaper, her band posters, and her bookshelves.

She nestled close in the cool bedsheets. Hugged one of the pillows against her chest. And she didn't get up, right away—she was almost always awake before her alarm, and it was nice to have some quiet time in the morning.

So she stayed in bed. The same, princess-style four-poster she'd always slept in—since she was old enough to be out of the crib they'd banished to the attic when she was two. The same canopy with the sheer curtains, trimmed with fairy bells and little rhinestones. The white, scrolled bedposts, stenciled with roses.

As the house woke up, she heard the familiar sounds, reverberating through the walls. Her mom, downstairs—back from feeding the horses, and singing to herself in the kitchen. And then her dad's footsteps, plodding down the hall to the upstairs bathroom. His slippers made the floorboards creak—always the same. Moments later, the old pipes let out a groan, somewhere in the walls. And she knew that was Daddy, running water in the sink—so he could shave and get ready for the day.

She leaned over—pushed the curtains out of the way with a jingle, and switched off her alarm. Got up, and went straight down the hall to the bathroom, to meet her dad.

And there he was. In his undershirt, with a towel draped around his neck.

When she stepped into the doorway, he stopped what he was doing, a moment. Nodded to the mirror—straight razor in hand—contemplating the next stroke.

"Bethy," he said. He didn't need to turn around—he knew it was her

She smiled.

"Daddy."

And she perched herself on the edge of the bathtub—like she always did, no matter how grown up she got. She just liked to do it—to watch him foam up the soap in that porcelain shaving mug of his. The one with the train painted on it. To smell the smell of his Old Spice aftershave. She'd sit there on the bathtub, and take it all in. And Beth would keep on doing it every day she had left at home—until the very day they'd flee the house, and watch it overrun by the dead.

He had his portable radio on the window sill—the really old one from before she was born. And he'd tuned to one of the local Christian stations—liked to listen to the man reading early-morning devotionals.

Today, the voice on the radio seemed more upset than usual. It was talking about the end times. The four horsemen. Judgment. Something about rioting in some far-away cities up north.

None of that made sense to Beth.

Then the thing began playing a folk version of "Onward Christian Soldiers", and she put it out of her mind.

* * *

The world beyond the church was dead.

Of course it was. After all, Beth knew there was a time to sew, and a time to reap. A time to be born, and a time to die.

In these silent streets, time had stopped altogether.

The town was empty. Eerily quiet—even more than she'd expected, from what Daryl told her on the road. Almost as if the streets had been cleared out, systematically. Beth didn't see any dead until she got closer to the center—and then, it was just a pair of them, trapped in a fenced-in backyard. Caught in the washing lines, out there—ones with dirty, tattered bedsheets hanging down. The walkers tangled themselves up, there—flailing their arms underneath the fabric, like Halloween ghosts.

Beth put up some laundry lines, herself, a few days before. Tied them between two maple trees in the yard, while a couple walkers growled at her beyond the fence. Carol and Maggie helped her. Chatted together, a bit—about how torn up the clothes were. About where the holes and tears and stains all came from. Close calls they'd been through—together, and alone.

And Beth was pinning up one of Daryl's shirts when she thought to ask them where they went on their supply runs. Whether they saw things for kids, there. What was there that you could use for a baby.

For Judith, she said.

And they'd mentioned a strip mall on Clairmont Drive. And Beth remembered seeing that street sign, near the big oak tree, when she was heading through town.

So that's where she was going. Took her backpack with her, with its broken strap. The Smith and Wesson. The hunting knife.

She wandered the streets. Past cars with flat tires. Picket fences, coming down. Broken windows. A basketball, caught in a sewer drain.

And all that—everything about it made sense, to Beth. This was the time for things to rot. A time for dying.

The wildflowers springing up in the front yards were almost out of place, as far as she was concerned. All that fresh greenery didn't fit with the program. Nature didn't get the memo, and the plants and birds and trees just went on about their business.

Once something started growing, it'd just keep on doing it—whatever it was. A plant. A tree.

A child.

* * *

Beth's dad was the one who dropped her off at the bus stop—since it was on the way to his office. That morning, he had a surgery scheduled, so he took her a bit early. A horse with a herniated umbilical cord. Patricia would already be there at the office, prepping.

Beth leaned against the car window, and watched the farm fields go by. When she was really little, her Dad had this cute little sportscar. A '74 Dautsun Fairlady. Yellow, with a hard top. He bought it for himself when he was in vet school—and he refused to get rid of it for  _years_  after that. It was pretty much rusted out, and had been home to more than a few mice before anyone could convince him to give it up.

When Beth was a toddler, she'd sit in one of the bucket seats on the way to her kindergarten, bouncing up and down on the dirt roads. She was so little, back then, that she could only see the tops of the telephone poles as they flew past.

Now, she could see the bus stop from a long way off—the bank of rural mailboxes for all the farms, down their way. And when her dad pulled over, Beth hopped out of the car as soon as he braked—grabbed her bookbag, and off she went

"Thanks, Daddy," she said—not bothering to look back as she made to close the door.

But he called after her.

" _Beth_."

She turned round, and he smiled. Had that light in his eyes, that always went along with them.

"Don't forget."

And he held up the Tupperware Beth left on the seat. Her lunch—with her name on a post-it note, in her mom's loopy handwriting.

She took it. Burst into a big smile. Thanked him, a second time:

"Thank you, Daddy."

And  _this_  time, she leaned in, over the passenger seat. Kissed him on the cheek, before he drove away.

* * *

The strip mall was just like the one outside town, back home. One of those old-ish, fading things with second-tier stores—all in a row with their yellowing signs. They were ugly before the world ended, and the time after that had done them no favors.

But there were all sorts of shops, full of supplies. A nail salon. A bridal shop. A Laundromat.

And there—at the far end. A small, discount grocery store.

 _That's_  what she needed. Beth cautiously made her way in that direction—through the parking lot, and past a cluster of abandoned cars. As her shadow fell across the car windows, weak arms reached up from inside. Pawed at the windows. Left finger trails on the dusty glass.

And Beth ignored them. They couldn't break through.

So she paused, there—where the cars gave some cover. Sized the place up, while the wind pulled in her hair.

The storefront windows were all smashed open. Summer storms did that—or looters, maybe. Beth didn't know. But there was trash all over the pavement, blown around from inside. Matted remains of newspapers and magazines, plastered onto the ground. Scattered food the animals dragged out of the grocery store. Cereal boxes, disemboweled and left to melt in the rain. Bits of rotted meat with pieces of cling-wrap still attached—desiccated and withered into brownish lumps, frosted with mold.

And something caught her eye. A movement.

The bridal shop window. There was torn wedding dress in there—half caught on the broken glass. Bright white and fluttering in the wind, like a flag.

"We surrender," Beth whispered to herself.

That struck her funny, and she let out a little snort. It sounded too loud, somehow, in the empty air.

Before she knew it, she was laughing outright. It wasn't that funny—not really. But she couldn't stop. It just kept bubbling out.

And she stood there, laughing—ankle-deep in trash and rot and debris, with the walkers pawing the glass at her back.

* * *

While Beth waited for the bus, she sang along to her iPod—the original cast recording for  _The Sound of Music_. That audition was coming up, fast, and even thinking about it made her nervous. So she liked to practice when she was alone.

But she wasn't alone for long. She was halfway through "Do-Re-Mi" when she saw Jimmy walking up the road—he wasn't too much more than a speck, at first. But she could tell it was him.

Beth pulled her earbuds out, and stuffed them in her jeans pocket.

She was never quite sure when she should wave to him, in the morning. If she'd end up looking too eager, or what. So she'd wait a real long time before trying it.

Usually, he waved first.

And when he made it to her, he smiled that big, toothy smile of his. His teeth were always really white. It was almost unnatural how perfect they were.

"Hey, you," he said.

And he put his hand on her shoulder—a sort of awkward, half-hug. They'd been together a little over two months—and it was all still kinda new. Neither of them had ever dated someone before. So she wasn't always sure what to do, when he touched her.

But this time, she leaned in against his shoulder. Hugged him back.

He pressed his cheek against her forehead, and for a moment, she thought she might kiss it.

She looked around, a second. The road was empty. None of the other kids were anywhere to be seen, yet. And Jimmy… he was pretty handsome in that new, grey crewneck of his. The one his mom got him over spring break.

So she didn't kiss his cheek, after all. Beth got up on the tips of her toes, and gave him a fast, little peck on the lips, instead.

* * *

Beth meant to be fast about things. To hit up the grocery store for whatever they had, and then to slip back to the church as fast as she could.

If she was lucky, no one would know she'd ever left.

But somehow… she got sidetracked. That white dress. The wedding dress. It called her—to something inside her. Something she'd forgotten a long time ago.

She went up to the bridal shop window, to get a better look. It was so  _pretty_. Ruched satin, with little beads on the sides—but not  _too_  many. Not so it was overdone. It was still tasteful. Half the skirt was frayed apart, and a waterfall of tulle spilled out from inside, and brushed against her arm in the wind.

And still… even torn up like that, it was gorgeous. Lovely in a way that made her want to touch it. Beth stepped into the display window—careful of the glass. And she brushed her fingers across the bodice. Soft and smooth, even with the stains from rainwater and dirt all over it. The bird droppings sprayed across the shoulders.

And a noise, at her back. Rustling, in the trash out there. Footsteps.

_Walkers._

She was sure of it. Whipped around. Strained to see where they were coming from.

Nothing.

But she kept hearing it… a sound like someone wading through autumn leaves.

And then laughter. A woman's laughter.

Beth tightened. And she wondered, for a moment, if she was hearing things—if she was finally going crazy. After all… walkers don't laugh.

_But people do._

The thought cut straight through her. Snapped her out of her stupor. Someone was almost on  _top_  of her, and she'd just been standing there in a shop window—like she was some kind of store display, herself.

She dropped to the ground—behind the tulle skirt—and hid from whoever was coming.

* * *

Beth perched on the piano bench in the music room—sideways, with one leg tucked up underneath her. She leaned against the keyboard, a bit—absently banging out arpeggios with one hand, and munching on carrot sticks with the other.

It was lunchtime. She'd made it through Bio lab, and just had Algebra and History left before the final bell. Britney and Krista were with her, chatting about all the rumors that had been going around. The weird stuff they'd been hearing on the news. On the internet.

Nobody talked about much else all morning, and Beth didn't know what to make of it.

"They were sayin' they might close school for a while," Britney said, idly stirring up her yogurt with a spoon, "You know, until the things are… what'd they call it this morning?"

Krista whipped out her phone, at that. Swiped the touchscreen—even though they weren't supposed to use electronic stuff during school hours. Pulled up a news article, and found what Britney was talking about:

"It says here ' _until the outbreak is_   _contained'_."

Britney snapped her fingers. Nodded.

"Yeah, that's it— _contained_. And they said a lot of schools're getting shut down, and they're using them for medical centers."

Beth didn't watch TV, really. Or read the paper, or anything like that. So almost all of this stuff was complete and utter news to her.

And the way people were talking, it all seemed really far away—so the idea of school getting cancelled kinda rattled her, at first. It seemed like a pretty big deal.

Britney saw the look on Beth's face, and backpeddled, a bit:

"They probably won't close school here, though. This place is  _tiny_. Theyre doin' that stuff in big cities, really."

"Well, if they  _do_  shut down," Beth said, looking down at her lunch, "Maybe we'll be able to help. Like… if they need volunteers?"

Britney grinned:

"You've  _always_  wanted to be Mother Theresa."

"Hey," Krista said, "Maybe you could meet a sexy doctor. Your eyes'd meet across a crowded cafeteria, while you're handing out chicken soup to orphans or whatever."

Britney lit up, at that, and picked right up where Krista left off:

"And you'd faint from exhaustion, and he'd go rushing over and put a hand on your forehead, and you'd wake up and be like 'oh  _Doctor_ , is it  _serious?_ '"

Krista put a hand to her brow:

" _Examine me_  and find out!"

Beth giggled.

" _Stop!_ "

And Britney shook her head:

"Nah, it'll never happen. She's too in love with Jimmy, now. Dr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome has to make do with the two of us."

Beth balled up her napkin, and threw it at Britney. And they all laughed. It took a while for them to settle down—but when they did, Krista looked at her phonescreen—the headline she'd been reading was still up on there.

"God, I hope they  _do_  cancel school," she said, "I got this huge paper due next Friday, and I didn't even start the research, yet."

When the bell rang, Beth went to algebra. Britney and Krista went to gym class.

They turned the corner a ways down the hall, and Beth never saw either of them again.

* * *

Beth could hear the strangers, but she couldn't see them. There were at least three. Maybe four. She could hear their voices.

And then, a car door, opening. The sound of snarls.

" _C'mon_  Brad, don't  _do_  that."

Beth carefully shifted her position, behind the dress—avoiding the shards of broken glass. She had to be silent. And she could see them—murky, through the thin fabric. A teenage boy and a woman, with a few others behind them. The boy was dragging a walker out of one of the cars. It was too weak to put up much fight.

And he took a machete from his belt, and started hacking at it. Took off some fingers. A hand. An arm. It gurgled at him from the ground, and he chuckled.

" _Brad_."

" _Fine_ ," he said. And he swung hard, and buried the machete in the thing's skull. Left the car door open as he followed the woman through the lot.

Beth lost sight of them, again. They were too close to the building. She tensed. Held her breath. Started feeling the panic building. Her hands were tingling. The marks on her wrists—the scars where they'd tied her up… for the first time in at least a week, they burned.

 _Bang_. A loud noise—the blade of a machete, on metal. Beth started.

"We know you're  _in there_."

_Oh, no._

Her stomach lurched. She leaned on the wall. Fumbled at her belt for her gun. Tried to get it out, and couldn't—her hands were shaking so bad, it was almost impossible. It took her a full minute, at least.

She looked down at the Smith and Wesson, and heard laughter from outside.

_It's them._

For a moment, she was sure of it. They followed her this whole time. Toyed with her. Let her think she'd made it out. Of course—of  _course_  she hadn't. Now they were done playing. They were going to make her go back to the barn—up in that hayloft—and she'd never, ever come down again _._

 _Clang_. That bright, metallic noise. And the sound of broken glass coming loose. Falling to the ground. They were at one of the store windows.

She took a deep breath. Tried to hold herself still. It  _wasn't_  them. Logically, she knew it. There were no women with those men. No teenage kids. If there were, they'd have been up in that barn, to keep her company.

But still, Beth's felt like she might throw up.

And that woman spoke up:

" _C'mon out_."

She let out a long whistle.

" _Come out, come out, wherever you are_ …"

Beth had to do something.

She pushed through the fog in her head, and inched forward. Tried to see them a bit better. Clutched her gun, tightly. Clicked the safety off, and peered around the edge of the window.

They were a little further down—in front of the grocery store. Not the bridal shop.

And Brad—he spoke up:

"Don't think there's no biters in here."

Beth eased up, sank back into the window display. Leaned on the wall. Her hand loosened on the Smith and Wesson, a bit.

Walkers. They were calling out for walkers, and didn't know she was here.

The sound of boots shifting on the pavement. Scraping sounds in the shattered glass. And another voice:

"You wanna find out?"

* * *

Beth walked in the shade of the maple trees, on the way to Mrs. Osgood's house for her piano lesson. The leaves were budding, and looked like tiny, green flowers. Spring was coming out in all the gardens. There was a smell of hyacinths, here and there.

And as for Beth—she'd play her etudes, and then she'd go home. Her mom would be roasting something nice for dinner. It was Thursday. That meant pork tenderloin.

She smiled to herself. Shifted her backpack on her shoulder.

It was a good day. A really good day.

* * *

Beth waited. They had no reason to go into the bridal shop. Nobody in this world had any reason to  _ever_  go into a bridal shop. She could hide behind the dress, and wait, and they'd leave.

And they did.

She watched them go—with whatever supplies they had in mind, from the store. Slowly, the sound of their feet in the trash faded, then disappeared. And she waited, even after that. Curled up with her face on her knees. Hugged her shins.

When she felt the tears stinging in her eyes, she tried to force them down. But the more she tried, the worse it got. They spilled down her cheeks. Soon, she was wiping her nose with her shirt, like a kid. Gasping for air.

And that—it was  _stupid_. Nothing  _happened_. She was  _fine_. But she couldn't control herself.

A wave of anger went through her. She hated what she was doing—that she had to do it. Hated how unfair it all was. Hated that group of people. Hated her tears.

Hated herself.

"Stop it," she whispered, wiping her face with her hands, "Stop it."

She wanted nothing more than to curl up with her mom. Tell her what happened. Everything that happened.

But that was stupid. Her mom was dead.

So she sat there, breathing in and out, slowly, and tried to calm herself down.

Time passed. An hour, at least. The sun started getting long on the walls. It filtered through the wedding dress beside her, and the tulle cast patterns on the carpet.

If she waited much longer, she'd get to the church after dark.

So she had to move. Stood. Her knees felt stiff as she climbed into the shop. And she crept through the racks of dresses—dusty, white things zipped up in transparent, plastic body bags.

And she made her towards the back. All she had to do was loop around behind the stores, and try to get into the grocery from the loading bay. Those people came from the front. So this was safer.

And there was a door, back behind the register. Plain metal, with a shift schedule taped to it. She tried the handle—and it fell open.

The first thing she noticed was that there was no light in the space beyond the door. It was all darkness and shadows. The second was the wave of putrid rot, rolling out from inside.

An instant later, a bloodstained hand reached out. Grabbed the door, and tried to force its way through.

* * *

Jimmy's mom dropped Beth off at home, that afternoon. And the minute she got in the car, she could tell they were fighting, again.

"But I take the car out  _all the time_."

" _Jimmy_ , you just got your license last year. You don't have  _any_  experience with city driving. And the highways into Atlanta are tough to navigate."

"But  _Mom_ —"

"The answer is  _no_."

Beth shrank further into the back seat. Hugged her bookbag against her body, and listened helplessly to the disaster going on in front. They kept at it the whole way. Past the bus stop and the bank of rural mailboxes. Past the fields. Down the dirt track that led to her Daddy's house.

That was no surprise to Beth. Since Jimmy's dad left, they never seemed to agree about anything.

And this time, the fight was because of her. It made her feel pretty weird. Jimmy had been wanting to take her out to Atlanta for a while, now. And there was an indie music festival, over the weekend—and he'd been talking a lot about how he'd bring her and they'd wait in the back and see if they could meet anybody famous.

And while that sounded nice, Beth wasn't really was sure she wanted to go. Not even  _before_  she got in the car, and heard them fighting. Not even when he first brought it up.

It seemed a little scary, going off alone together somewhere so big, and so dangerous.

But Jimmy… he wouldn't give up. Not with Beth, and not with his mom. It was like he was trying to prove something. That he was grown up enough to take her out. That he could drive in the city. That he was good enough for all of that.

Finally, his mom shook her head. Her silver earrings shoot a little, when she did it:

"I'm  _sorry_. You're just not ready for that kind of responsibility."

He looked at Beth, then back at his mother.

" _Mom!_ "

"I said  _no_ , Jimmy. You wanna get yourself grounded?"

He slammed his hand on his forehead, and Beth twitched in her seat.

" _God!_ " he shouted, "Why you gotta be so damned  _stubborn_  all the time?"

His mom braked hard, and the car lurched to a stop. They hadn't quite made it to Beth's house, yet—she could only just see it down the road. But apparently, the ride was over.

And she glared at Jimmy.

"We  _don't use that kind of language_."

Beth figured she was close enough to walk the rest of the way. So she got out—fast. But before she closed the door, she looked at the two of them, awkwardly:

"Thank you, Ms. Miller," she said.

* * *

Beth threw herself against the door. Let out a cry, and pushed against the hands inside. It  _wasn't_  the exit. It was an office, or a storeroom, or  _something_ —and there were dead things locked in there.

 _Stupid_. She was so  _stupid_.

The door jolted against her shoulder. She let out a cry. Pushed as hard as she could. But she was so  _tiny_ , and there were so  _many_  of them in there—it was no contest. They pushed through in a matter of seconds. The door flew open. Hit her in the face. The force tossed her flat on her back.

Her head slammed against the checkout counter—hard. When Beth tried to get up, she swayed, and saw stars. She only got halfway up, and fell down again.

So she scrambled back on her hands. Everything was moving too fast. One of them got down low—on its knees, and reached for her, there on the carpet.

Something brushed against her back—plastic bags, with the dresses inside. She'd made it to the far wall. So Beth grabbed one of the bags, and tried to pull herself up. She was halfway there when it fell. She fell right along with it.

And the first walker grabbed her foot. Tugged at her boot, and sank its teeth into it. Tried to work its way through the leather. She shook herself free, and kicked it square in the face. Saw the tooth marks, ingrained on her boot, when she did it.

The others were right there. She could see their faces, now. Almost unrecognizable as  _human_ , they were so torn up. Bared teeth. Exposed tendons. Lidless eyes.

She tried to stand, again. Tugged on the dresses, to help get her footing.

And the whole rack went down, with a crash. Buried her in a sea of white.

* * *

After she closed the car door, and started walking to the house, Beth could still hear Jimmy and his mom yelling at each other. The sound faded as they drove away.

Beth was more than happy to be out of that car. Let out a deep breath, and made her way down the walk.

The first thing she noticed was her Dad's car, parked in its usual spot in front of the house. But it was only four-thirty. He shouldn't be back yet. Not for another hour and a half.

When she got closer, she saw a flash of something else, behind it.  _Maggie's_  car. Beth squinted. Wasn't sure that she'd seen it right, at first.

But it  _was_  Maggie's car. Her sister hadn't been home since Easter—had an internship in the city, nowadays. Was renting a spare room from friends, out there. Beth spent spring break at her place—sleeping on an air mattress on the floor next to Maggie's bed—but she hadn't seen her since then. It felt like ages and ages.

That she was here… it didn't make  _sense_.

Beth ran up to the house. Around to the side door, to the kitchen, like she always did. She kicked her boots off as fast as she could, and left them by the mat. Let the screen door slammed shut behind her.

Mom was in the kitchen, working on that pork roast. But she came over right away, and pulled Beth close. Kissed the top of her head.

And Beth looked up at her.

"Maggie's here?"

"Your father wanted her to come home," Mom told her. Stroked her hair, and let her go. Turned to get some dishes out of the cupboard:

"You know—just to be safe."

It was that  _thing_  that was going on. The one Britney and Krista were talking about at lunch. Daddy was so worried about it, he had Maggie drive back from Atlanta.

And Beth could hear the tv on, in the other room.  _That_  was pretty weird, too—especially in the afternoon. When she walked in there, she saw her Dad, sitting on the sofa. Maggie, standing behind it, with a hand on his shoulder. Shawn, right next to her, chewing on his lip like he did when he got nervous.

All three of them were staring at the screen.

So Beth joined them. Drifted to the doorway. They were watching the news—some sort of live footage. She stepped into the room, to get a better look.

And—for the first time—there they were.

Walkers. But just then, it only looked like a grainy video of people on a busy street. The news crawler said it was New York. Beth squinted at it. The people… they didn't seem to be moving too well—but there were a  _lot_  of them. Dozens and dozens.  _Hundreds_ —all crowded up together. Doing a whole lot of not much… just… milling around. Some of them had torn clothes. Looked pretty beat up. Bloody.

Beth drifted closer to the tv. Stood next to her sister. And right then, Shawn whispered at the screen:

" _Wow_ …"

* * *

Beth pushed the bags out of the way. Dug her way out, with a groan. Pushed against the wall with one hand, and scrambled upright.

They were all around her, in among the bags. The dresses were stirring, scattered on the floor.

She whipped around. Went straight for the window. The dress was still there, on its mannequin, with the light making patterns on the satin. And they were right behind her. She could hear them as she climbed up into the display, and out the other side.

When she landed on the asphalt, she scanned the lot. Everything was the same, except the light getting lower. Her mind was racing. In an instant, sheBeth made a plan. She couldn't make a run for it—they were too close. She'd fall in the garbage, if she moved too fast. If she shot at them, she'd bring those  _people_  back. They'd find her, and do who knows what.

But the  _car_. The one with the walker Brad hacked up. It was over there, with the door hanging open.

The dome light was on. It  _might_  start up.

Beth ran, as fast as she dared in the mess on the pavement. Cans and boxes scattered around her feet, and the feet of the walkers behind her. They were so  _close_. She could feel the air stirring at her back, as they moved. One of them swiped at her shirt. She felt its fingers trail across the fabric. Heard the groans. But it was just out of reach, and didn't take hold.

The car seemed like it was getting further away, somehow, the closer she got to it. In her mind, she saw herself slipping on a patch of wet garbage. Tripping on a can. And then she'd fall down and they'd have her.

She kept going.

When she reached the body on the ground, she planted her boot firmly on its back, and vaulted herself inside the car. Threw the door shut.

Their hands slammed against the glass an instant later.

* * *

When the local news came on at seven, the anchor said school was closed, tomorrow. And so for the first time since the cafeteria flooded last April, Beth found herself with an unexpected long weekend.

She was sitting at the dining room table when they made the annoucement—beading a bracelet. Shawn called over to her, and told her what the news said.

And Beth would remember, later, how it felt. Exciting. Like an adventure. Something  _different_  was happening—and different things  _never_  happened, for Beth. She beaded the fishing wire, and strung rows together into a pretty cuff. Tourqoise and citrine beads. She'd bought them in the city, when she was visiting Maggie. And she thought—if it came out right, that is—that the bracelet might make a nice Mother's Day gift.

Before she knew it, the grandfather clock started chiming. Seven-thirty. Dad came in. Leaned over, and patted her shoulder:

"Do your homework, Beth."

She looked up:

"But we don't have school tomorr—"

He looked at her steadily—in a way that made her stop mid-sentence. He seemed a little sad, somehow. Smiled a small smile, and touched her arm, again:

"Do your homework."

* * *

 _Keys_. Beth need the car keys.

Someone died in the car—right here in the front seat. That meant there  _might_  be keys, somewhere inside.

If they were in the walker's pocket, out there where it was sprawled on the pavement, Beth was screwed.

The walkers surrounded her, fast. Blocked out the fading, evening light. Their hands beat on the windows, all at once. It sounded almost like heavy rain.

And Beth tried to ignore them. Took a deep breath, and almost gagged with how awful it smelled, in there. The driver's seat was sticky with whatever seeped out of the body, in the Georgia heat. She felt it clinging to her shirt. Soaking through, onto her back.

And she rifled the dashboard. Nothing. She pulled down the sun visor. Out fell a pen, some receipts, and a twenty dollar bill.

Some of the dead managed to crawl up on the hood. Had their faces mashed against the windshield, now.

The glove box. She climbed over, and ripped it open with clumsy fingers. Started tugging things out as fast as she could.

But there was nothing. Beth was trapped.

The windshield started cracking. The spider-web patterns distorted the faces staring in at her.

* * *

Beth and Maggie slept out, that night. On the porch, in their sleeping bags—just like when they were younger, and it was summer vacation. Open to the sky and God and everything—whatever might wander out of the woods, and head straight for the flashlights they had going.

Remembering it later, it told her how little they really understood what was going to happen. It was all making Beth giddy—having all this change going on. Having Maggie at home. It was like they were taking a little holiday, together. A slumber party.

* * *

The window started breaking, and Beth's hand went to her holster. She didn't even think about it until it was already there. And she  _could_  shoot them. She had enough rounds. But if she did,...  _if_  she did those people—those strangers—they'd hear it. They'd come for her.

She drew her knife, instead. Held it ready.

And in that moment, a hand smashed through. Started flailing around. Beth threw up her arm—shielded her face as bits of glass flew everywhere.

Instantly, the muffled groans got louder, through the open hole. The evening air rushed through it. The hand stretched and strained. Started grabbing at the dashboard. Pulling itself forward.

Beth scrambled into the back seat. Looked left and right. Nothing but walkers on all sides. No way out.

She was breathing hard. Had no idea what to do next. She clutched her knife—hard—and gasped for air.

As the first walker came through, it planted its foot on the steering wheel, and the horn let out a gasping, tired wheeze.

* * *

Beth and Maggie talked late into the night. Listened to the crickets in the fields. And the whole time, Beth was shining her flashlight on the porch ceiling. Made patterns on the peeling paint, and the cobwebs.

Maggie giggled at something Beth said—that girlish sort of giggle she had when she was a teenager. Later on, after everything happened, she wouldn't laugh that way, anymore.

But right then, Beth didn't know that. She didn't know  _anything_. All she was thinking about was how great it was to be together, again.

When she woke up that morning, Beth would never have imagined the day would end like this.

And over time, their conversation got personal. Beth told her about Jimmy. How much she liked him. How she kinda wanted to try making out with him. Just to see how it felt.

And later, Maggie told her about her mom. Josephine. It was the only time she ever really brought it up. It must've been on her mind, for some reason.

Maggie lay there, next to her. Didn't look at her while she talked about it—just stared up at the lathe on the ceiling. And she said that the cancer was scary. That it didn't just kill you—it destroyed who you _were_. Withered you down, in stages, and slowly took you away.

Her mom was thin as a skeleton and writhing in agony, by the end.

"Really, Mom looked like she was already dead," Maggie whispered, softly, as the crickets chirped in the grass, "Like she was alive and dead at the same time. Like a body, if it kept on moving after you were gone, somehow…"

Beth thought about that. Tried to take it in. And the moths fluttered in and out of the beam from her flashlight—drawn to the glow, mindlessly, in the darkness.


	6. Hide and Seek

_I want to thank everyone for your support-you've been so good to me, this week, with the kind messages I've received. And it's helped a lot with moving forward. I have chapter 6 ready today. Thank you, I absolutely-and I mean this-could not have done it without you._

_I want to remind everyone that this story has disturbing themes involving sexual violence, and while there's nothing explicit here, you may not want to read it if you are particularly sensitive to that sort of thing. You can always ask me if you aren't sure._

_Thank you, again. It means so much to me to have such great friends, on here._

* * *

_Hide-and-Seek:_

The cool, morning air moved over Beth's face, and she slowly drifted awake.

She couldn't remember her dreams, too well. Something about voices, far away. Filtered sunlight. Blackflies on her arms. Humid heat on her skin.

Pages rustling, somewhere below her. And laughter.

" _That kid, Zack—he ever fuck her?"_

And then the heavy boots, climbing up the ladder. Rhythmically—methodically. No one was in any hurry.

Moments later, that feeling you get—when you know someone's there next to you, but you can't see them. The sound of rough breath, in the air. Boots, shifting. Grains of dirt under the soles, scraping against the floorboards.

A buckle working, and a belt landing on the wood.

 _Thud_.

Then the bedroom door rattling, back home. Shawn's door—third down on the left side of the hall.

_Thud-Thud-Thud._

It shook on its hinges. Beth sat in the hallway, and watched the thing creak and complain as he threw his weight against the other side. Watched the light shift on the floorboards as he moved around, in there. Cast shadows through the crack at the bottom, with his bare feet.

And a hand on the back of her neck—so hard she couldn't move. The barn boards mashed against her face. The smell of hay and dust. The sunlight, through the slatted walls—hot on her skin. The struggle to breathe. And pain. And pain. And pain.

_Thud-Thud-Thud._

Mom was in the third bedroom, now. Shawn's bedroom. The two of them, together. Otis dragged a china cabinet in front of the door, so they couldn't knock it down. But they kept on trying. And Beth lay in bed—looking at the fairy bells on her little-girl canopy.

She could hear both of them trying to break free, together.  _Thud-Thud-Thud. Thud-Thud-Thud._ Over and over, forever.

It shook the house. Made the bells tremble on her bedcurtains. Just a little, so she could barely hear them ringing over the racket three doors down.

And the tennis ball—slamming against the barn walls.  _Thud_. The dog, running for it. Bringing it back to its masters. The floor shaking underneath her, every time they threw it, again.

" _That kid Zack—he ever fuck her?"_

It all went on and on. Over and over, in circles. Faded into a blur. And after a while, she opened her eyes.

The first thing she saw was the underside of the railroad bridge. Some lines of graffiti, scrawled out on the metal truss. One painted right over the other, like they were fighting for attention:

_Johnny fucks cuntz_

_Bobby luvs Erin 4-VR_

And above that, a spiderweb, beaded with little raindrops, filtering the sunlight. It threw off arcs of color—a soft rainbow, that radiated through the silent, morning mist.

* * *

The car horn gasped and sputtered under the walker's bare foot—as if the thing was hurting it. The whimper trailed off as the last of the battery power died away.

The walker reached for her, and it was like the hayloft. Like being prey. Being food. Being consumed. Taken.

The windshield was completely gone, now—the glass just crumbled away under the hands outside—straining and tugging to get in. Those others were right behind the first one. One of them grabbed it by the ankle, and used it to help drag itself over the dashboard.

Beth gripped her knife in one hand. She  _wouldn't_  use her gun.

The first one was almost on her, now. So she threw her arm out. Pushed against its shoulder, and lunged. Buried the knife deep into the eye socket. As she yanked the blade out, again, its head lolled forward, and the damp, stringy hair smothered Beth's face.

Seconds later, the walker's corpse starting shaking against her body—the hands swung limply in the air, and brushed against her legs. The others were pushing against it—trying to get through. So she used the body as a barrier. Pushed it against the front seats, to block the way. As she did it, the head rolled backwards, and the damp hair slid away from her face. More walkers were pressing against the side windows, now—they darkened the inside of the car. Behind them, she saw hints of evening sky. Pale blue, laced with a pink, sunset glow.

She started to think that it was time to pull out that gun, after all.

But when she looked to her holster, a cold wave washed over her. She couldn't  _get_  to it. If she let go with even one hand, the other walkers would climb over the body.

It was too late.

The back window shattered—sprayed glass in Beth's hair. She let out a strangled cry. Twisted in place—strained to see. A head pushed its way through. Snarled at her with black teeth.

* * *

That morning, Beth left the railroad bridge behind her. Followed the tracks, wherever they might lead.

The hanged man. The boy.  _JSR_. She left  _him_  behind, too. He was still sprawled out on the pavement, with his own blood and guts splattered everywhere around him. There were some walkers down there with him, when she woke up. Just two. But she didn't want to risk going after them, when she didn't absolutely  _have_  to.

So she left him like that.

She didn't like it. When she climbed out of her hiding place, and up onto the bridge, she took a moment to look down at him. She could see his hands moving. And the walkers beside him kept stepping on him. Spreading his entrails around, with their feet.

And Beth slipped away, as quietly as she could. Wandered down the rows of ancient trestles, overgrown with weeds.

There were walkers close by—maybe some of the ones that wandered under the railroad bridge in the night. She could see their shapes in the woods. Off in the distance. Groups standing here or there, in little clusters—like they were normal people, waiting for a bus or something.

Beth tried to be quiet. So far, none of them had noticed her. And they were pretty far away—so at this distance, they probably wouldn't register her as a living person. Not right away, anyhow. And if they did, she could run out of sight before they could get too close.

Barring that, there was the gun. She put her hand on her belt, and touched it—to reassure herself. The 9mm Smith and Wesson the boy at the bridge had given her.

That's how she thought about it. He didn't just leave it—he  _gave_  it to her, like a gift. The bag, too. Everything in it. The hangman's rope, that meant she could carry the pack on both shoulders—that kept the weight even on her back. Left her grounded and steady.

She thanked him, in her mind. Shifted the thing in place, and followed where the rails would take her.

* * *

The walker crawled through the back windshield. Beth pressed forward in her seat, against the body she'd been using to protect herself. Cringed away from its hands. The others were just on the other side—teeth snapped at her on the other side of the dead walker's arm. They moaned and wheezed—and she could smell the air from it on her face. Not breath—never breath. Just the leathery, rotten lungs heaving inside the dead chests.

And she watched the one in the back window come closer, and there was nothing she could do about it.

It reached in. Brushed her hair with its fingers, and then—suddenly—jerked backwards. Slid away—through the glass. Down the trunk of the car.

Someone pulled it out. She could barely see them, through the dirt the thing had smeared on what remained of the glass.

Then, a gunshot. Then another. Old blood splattered across the passenger side window, and a walker out there slumped over on the car door.

* * *

As the morning light grew in the sky—and Beth had put a couple miles behind her—she started to hear rustling, in the underbrush.

Something close by. Not a walker, or a person… something smaller than that. Something low to the ground.

She caught sight of a grey blur, once, but couldn't make out what it was.

* * *

The gunshots outside distracted the walkers in the front. They turned their heads towards it. Beth took her chance—dropped the corpse, and made for her gun. The body fell across her lap—face-first on the seat.

She fired point-blank, and the blood sprayed all over her. Cold and scummy, with bits of bone in it. The feeling of that was familiar, by now. So she ignored it, and kept going. Took each one out, by turn. Soon, there was a pile of corpses slumped over the front seat.

And it got quiet. A few more shots, outside—methodical and careful. Then nothing but footsteps, on the pavement, wading through the trash, out there. Beth frantically turned the gun in her hands, and checked the magazine.

She was running low on bullets.

_They're here for me—those others._

Her breath caught in her throat.

_They heard, and came back._

Beth darted around in the seat—trying to see where she should aim to defend herself.

And a hand came down on the window at her side. A clean hand, with a wedding ring on it. An engagement ring.

She trained her gun on the shape out there. Watched as it wiped at the blood and dirt, splattered all over the glass. Held her breath.

And a familiar face looked through.

Maggie.

It was Maggie.

* * *

It was a bright morning, now that the rain had cleared up, and Beth could tell it would be a hot day. Already, she felt the sweat running down her forehead. When she wiped it away, the salt stung at the wounds on her hands.

Over time, the sun got high, up above. It was around noon. So she stopped to rest. Sat down on a fallen log, rolled her backpack off her shoulder, and caught her breath. Rooted around in the bag, and found the flask—filled with rainwater, the night before. Fresh, good water. And Beth drank deep.

After everything, it tasted wonderful.

She'd hardly got the top back on the flask before the brush started rustling, again. Louder, now. Closer.

Beth got up off the log. Scanned the woods. And right then, something burst out of the low bushes, and onto the tracks.

A coyote.

She stared at it, and it stared back with its strange, yellow-brown eyes.

Beth didn't know what to make of the thing. She'd seen coyotes before, but they were like possums or squirrels. Didn't approach you, out in the woods. Just went about their business.

But it lunged right at her. Nipped at her ankle. Swiped the boot, and left a scuff on the leather. She jerked her leg away, and stumbled back a bit, on the train tracks.

"What?" she asked "You wanna  _eat_  me?"

She waved her arm at it—hard—and it startled. Jumped backwards. But it didn't run away.

There was a smell on its fur. Rotted flesh. Its muzzle had black stains on it. It must eat the walkers—must tear bits off them all the time, out in the woods. Must've been doing it just now, from the looks of things. The walkers were  _everywhere_ , after all. Free food, and easy for something small and fast to get at.

It went after them. And now, it was after her.

She scoffed at it, then. Furrowed her brow:

" _I'm not_   _dead_. Go  _away_."

It didn't budge.

And Beth… she never thought she'd try to hurt an animal. But when it didn't move, she kicked right at its face. But it was no good—the thing was fast. It deftly leapt back on its paws, then darted forward again. Let out a huffing breath. Snapped at the space between the two of them, with its teeth.

This wasn't good.

"C'mon," she said, " _Shoo!_ "

Nothing. It started forward at her, again, and she started getting really nervous. She stepped back, and it stepped forward. Again. Again.

Finally, her heel hit a stone. She leaned down and grabbed it. Threw it right at the thing. Yelled at it:

" _Get out of here!_ "

The rock hit it square in the face. It let out a whimper, and bolted.

Immediately, she knew she'd been too loud. Shouldn't have shouted like that. It echoed in the air, a moment.

Beth whipped her head around—one of the walkers in the woods was already turning towards the tracks. So she dropped to the ground—sheltered behind the grass. Watched. Waited.

Over time, it forgot, and drifted back into the trees.

* * *

Beth crawled over one of the dead bodies, and out of the car. Slammed the door shut behind her, and brushed her hands off on her jeans. Maggie was right there—holding her handgun, catching her breath, and scanning the place for any more walkers.

Her sister turned to her, and looked her over:

"You ok, Beth?"

She didn't answer. Maggie  _followed_  her. Came charging in to save the day. Somehow… it made her angry.

So she went up to her sister—close. Got right in her face:

"What're  _you doing here?_ "

Maggie just looked at her a moment—shocked. As if she thought what she was up to was utterly obvious. It took her a few seconds to speak up, after that.

"… when—when I came back out to check on you at the fence, you were  _gone_ … thank  _God_  you came  _here_ , and not somewhere else. It was the only place I knew to look."

Of course. Beth asked about this place, when they were putting laundry up. Maggie remembered that—gave it try.

She shook her head.

" _God_ , Beth—what were you  _thinking_?"

Beth shrugged.

"I need some stuff."

"So you just wandered off  _alone?_ Without _telling anybody?_ "

"I  _had it covered_. And then  _you_  come in here, guns blazing."

Beth was pacing in the trash, scattered all over the pavement. Turned her back on Maggie, a moment, then wheeled around to face her, again:

"And besides— _you_  came to  _get me_  alone. You tell anyone what  _you_  were doing? No, you just rushed off. But that's  _different_ , isn't it?"

She stepped closer. Felt herself shaking, she was so mad:

" _You're_  different. You  _think_  you are. I used to think so, too. Well  _screw that,_ Maggie."

She turned around for good, then. Went straight for the grocery store—its bank of dark, broken windows. A black maw, like the entrance to a cave. The bridal veil from the wedding dress had gotten loose from the mannequin. It blew across the ground, in front of Beth, and away.

And Beth—she just kept going. Didn't care whether Maggie her followed or not. And she didn't, right away—Beth would hear her footfalls in the trash, if she did. There was nothing. And when Maggie spoke up again, she sounded defeated:

"Where are you going?"

Beth didn't stop. Just headed for what she needed:

"I told you," she said, "I've gotta get somethin'."

* * *

Beth waited a long time, after that walker disappeared into the woods. But then, she got up. Moved on.

The woods opened up onto farm fields—overgrown, and choked with weeds. The sun was impossible to avoid, now. It reflected off the gravel, around the tracks. The yellow grass.

And after a while, she made out something by the tracks—way off down the way. A shape—distorted a little, in the humid heat.

She squinted. It was a sign. A handmade one—hanging a little sideways on its post.

When she got closer, she could read the words:

_Terminus. Sanctuary for All. Community for All. Those Who Arrive, Survive._

She went up to it. Those words—they weren't what interested her, at first. It was something  _else_.

Someone had written something  _over_  the sign, by hand. They'd done it with blood—a really long time ago. The letters were faded—the blood ran in trails down the laminated paper. Rain and weather did that—so it was impossible to make out most of what it said.

But the last word—she could  _almost_  read it. Beth traced the letters with her finger—one at a time. The first one. "M". And the next, "a". And the next...

There was no question what it spelled.

 _Maggie_.

" _Maggie_ …" she whispered. Laid her hand over the word. And she stood there, a while, just looking at it, while a little breeze kicked up, and blew over her face.

Then Beth looked down the tracks—as if her sister might be standing there. As if the writing meant she'd found her, already.

She smiled, to herself. Started on her way—faster than she had, before.

* * *

Maggie stopped her when they made it into the front of the grocery. Touched her arm, to hold her in place. And she scanned the distance—the back of the store, swallowed in nighttime shadows. She was looking for walkers. Beth knew there weren't any, in here—or the strangers who came in before would've found them.

Beth pulled away, and headed past the bank of cash registers—scanned the signs over the aisles, hanging haphazardly on their chains. Hunted for the right one.

And Maggie kept on. Followed her. She could hear her footfalls in the piles of newspapers, and cardboard, and fallen leaves:

"I don't understand what you were even  _doing_ ," Maggie said, "You were  _cornered_. Why didn't you shoot them?"

Beth craned her neck around an end-cap. The sign for this aisle was on the ground. She stepped over it, and its blue lettering:

_Analgesics, Cough/Cold, Vitamin Supplements, Family Planning_

"There were people, here. Strangers. They might hear."

Maggie's tone changed, at that. She rushed forward, so she could look at Beth:

"People? How many people?"

"Dunno… five or six?"

"Where'd they go?  _Did they see you_?"

Beth looked at her sister. She was dead serious. And Beth started getting the uncomfortable feeling that Maggie knew who those strangers were. Or at least suspected.

And whatever Maggie knew… it couldn't be good.

It made Beth re-evaluate things. The tension she'd sensed in the group. Daryl… going out all the time. The careful watch they'd been keeping, in the churchyard.

There was something the others were keeping from her. Something important.

Beth shook her head. Let out an exasperated breath.

"Just cover me, ok?"

* * *

" _You ain't never gonna see Maggie again."_

That's what Daryl said, one of the first nights after the prison. When they both had too much to drink, and he started getting rough with her. Throwing her around.

It really sunk in, for her. He had a way of cutting to the heart of things—especially when it meant facing a painful reality. It was like he relished in it.

And Beth… she'd never been like that. She wanted to hope. Wanted to believe.

As she walked the tracks, and thought and thought about the sign. What it could mean.

Maybe it  _wasn't_  her Maggie—that's what Daryl might say. It could be  _any_  Maggie, really. The handwriting was smeared on thick and made out of guts… so it wasn't exactly easy to tell who put it there.

And Beth started getting into an area that looked a bit more populated—or at least like it used to be, before the turn. Some industrial buildings rose up over the horizon. Some old sheds. Gravel roads, heading off somewhere or other. She hoped that'd mean the coyote would leave her alone, now. Give up, outside of its own territory.

Until then, she knew it was still following her trail. She'd seen it, a couple times. Like the games of hide-and-seek she used to play with Shawn and Maggie, up in the attic, when she was a kid. Or like some kind of blood-sucking dog, hounding her.

She threw another rock at it, once. And when she got a good look, she wasn't sure if it was the same  _one_. This coyote looked a little bigger, to her. It had a different coat.

Her dad said they usually ran in packs.

But he  _also_  used to tell her not to worry about them, on hikes out in the woods beyond the farm. He'd say to carry a walking stick, and your cell phone, of course—there are dangerous animals, out there. But coyotes aren't much to concern yourself with. They don't hunt people.

They go for easy food.

A little further down, she saw the thing, again. Nipping at a walker on the rails—half of a corpse. Pulling out the guts, and trailing them out over the trestles.

Easy pickings, there. And Beth—she'd made it hard for the coyote to get at her.

So she slipped off the track, and tried to sneak around, so it wouldn't see her, while it was distracted.

It had its meal, and she could leave the thing behind.

* * *

Beth knelt down on the floor, at the end of the pharmacy aisle. The shelving she needed had been knocked over, and all the bottles were scattered everywhere. She rooted around in the trash. Most of the vitamins were still sealed—probably they'd be good for something. A bunch of fish oil canisters had gotten chewed open by animals—and the pills were scattered all over the ground. Some had broken, and coated the rest with a scummy, weird-smelling film.

She looked and looked for the right labels—peeling and faded, on the bottles.

And every so often, she'd look up, to check on Maggie. And she could see her silhouette, in the front of the store. Keeping watch. Pacing back and forth, slowly, gun in hand.

Every so often, she'd turn and look towards Beth—way off in the back.

* * *

Sunset was just starting to hint at the sky when Beth found another sign, on the rails. She had no idea how long she'd been walking—had hardly even thought about it. She was so excited after the first sign, that she didn't really think about much else. Hadn't even looked at the map on it. Just the name, there, written in blood.

And  _this_  sign… it was sheltered a lot more than the first, under the bows of a big maple tree. Enough time had passed, since the end of things, that the branches had gotten long—draped over the tracks so a train really couldn't get through, anymore. There might be writing on that. Writing she could actually read.

Beth ran forward. And there  _was_  writing on it—she could see it from here. A message from Maggie. Something she could touch, that Maggie touched...

When she saw the words, she stopped in place. So fast she almost fell over.

_Glenn. Go to Terminus. Maggie._

Her face fell. She could feel the smile draining out of it.

She drifted forward. Reached out. Touched the wrinkled, laminated paper, and her heart sank in her chest.

It was Maggie—no doubt about it.  _Her_  Maggie.

She spent the whole day rushing along the tracks, looking for her sister. But Beth…  _nobody_  was looking for Beth. And from how weathered it was, Beth figured the writing had been up for  _ages_ , now—weeks and weeks. Maggie gave her up for dead a long time ago.

_"You ain't never gonna see Maggie again."_

Everyone believed that.  _Everyone_. Everyone but her.

Beth sank down on the tracks. Her knees felt weak. She just sat there, for a long time, staring at her bloody hands—so long she started hearing noises in the trees. Maybe that coyote, catching up to her, again.

For the first time, Beth knew it for certain.

She was alone.

* * *

On the way back to the church, Beth set a fast pace. And the two of them made it as far as that big oak tree, in silence. The tree that owns itself.

Beth ignored it, this time. Stepped over the walker she'd put down, there, weeks before.

And Maggie made to follow.

"Beth," she said, "Beth,  _talk to me_."

Finally, Maggie grabbed at her. Tried to get her shoulder, and Beth yanked herself away.

"What'd you get, in there?"

"Leave me al—"

"You  _gotta_  tell me."

Beth just kept on walking. And Maggie made to grab her shoulder, again—to stop her in place. But she snagged the hangman's rope on the backpack—and Beth jerked herself away. The strap caught between the two of them, a moment, before the bag fell on the ground.

And Beth made to grab it, before Maggie could. But Maggie got there first. Opened it. Pulled out the bottles.

Pre-natal vitamins. Folic acid.

Maggie's eyes welled over, and her face fell. It was silent, except for the quiet wind, fluttering through the oak leaves.

Maggie looked down at the ground, a moment. Back up, again. When she spoke, it was very, very quiet.

"Are you sure?"

Beth didn't say anything. Maggie bit her lip, and tilted her head to the side. Let out a breath, and reached out with both arms, to hold her.

Beth stepped back. Threw out her hands, and shoved Maggie away by the shoulders.

"What do  _you_  care, anyway?"

Maggie looked at her, shocked. Shook her head.

"Beth—I—"

"You  _didn't look for me_."

Maggie's brow furrowed. She didn't understand.

"I  _saw them_. I saw your  _signs_. You didn't tell me to follow you. You didn't even  _think about me_. You thought I was  _dead_."

Maggie tried to reach out, again, and Beth smacked her arm away. Turned, and headed down the road.

"I don't need your pity."

"Beth, it's  _not_ —"

"Just  _leave me alone_."

* * *

The next sign Beth saw was askew on its post. Had the same writing on it as the last one.

Beth grabbed at it. Tore it off its moorings, and threw it into the woods.

* * *

Soon, the church was in sight, down the road. The ruined tower, silhouetted against the dusky sky. And Maggie—she kept trying to talk to Beth. She never was one to stay quiet for long.

"Beth, you can't do this alone… there's stuff we've gotta do to see you through it. You'll need a doctor."

"Well, we  _don't got_  one."

"We've got Bob."

Beth shook her head. Didn't say anything, and Maggie pressed on:

"Look—I won't tell anyone else—not now. But do you want me—do you want me to tell him for you?"

Beth shrugged. It didn't make any difference. He'd find out sooner or later.

They reached the pile of bodies—the walkers Beth dragged out to burn, before she went on her run. And Maggie walked past them—but Beth stopped.

"Wait," she said.

Beth picked up the gas can—the same one she'd left there, a few hours ago. And she looked to her sister.

"Still gotta burn 'em," she said.

She stepped over the pregnant girl. The body's left hand was sprawled out on the pavement—and Beth couldn't help but notice there was no wedding ring on that hand.

So Beth figured they had more in common than she'd even realized, before.

She doused the bodies as well as she could, and set the pile alight. The fire flared up a minute—bright and hot—then simmered down low. Cast a warm, orange light on Maggie's face.

Beth walked over. Stood next to her sister, and watched the slow burn.

* * *

Night settled in, and Beth curled up against the wall of an abandoned train-car, full of bags of cement powder, that never got delivered. She'd closed the doors behind her—safe and secure. The thing was open at the top, so she could see by the moonlight.

She could rest here, and keep following the rails in the morning.

And she tried to take care of her wounds, then—her hands. Used the boy's knife to pick out the splinters, as best she could, in the darkness. Some of them were really big. Hurt when she moved her fingers. They had to go.

And looking at his knife, her mind wandered to the boy at the bridge, again. That poor boy.

He really did look like Zack.

The crickets sang outside, in the grass, and the stars peeked through the humid haze, up above her.

" _That Zack kid, he ever fuck her?"_

He didn't. Not that those men ever knew it.

There were a few times the two of them went off, together, into the quiet parts of the prison. When Daddy and Maggie were busy with other things, and wouldn't notice her gone. And they'd find some old cell in an empty block—past long hallways of concrete and shadow.

When they got in one of those cells—he'd be nervous and quiet, at first. They'd stand face-to-face as he stroked her hair. And somehow—she'd never really notice  _how_ , exactly—they'd end up settled down on whatever hard, bare mattress was left on the abandoned, lower bunk.

And there was his voice in her ear. The soft breath of it. Gentle. Soothing:

" _It's ok_ …"

And his lips would be on her neck, then. She'd see pale light on the concrete, off past his shoulder—stretching out from high windows, far away. She'd hear the sound of her own breath in the air—soft and cool and quiet.

Beth felt a little like she did when she was alone—when they were together, like that. Like she did at the pond back at the farm, on clear nights when there was no wind, and the smooth surface reflected the stars. Like she was somewhere set apart from ordinary things—like a cemetery. Like a church.

But she and Zack… they never went very far, in those empty jail cells. She was too cautious for that. Too aware of what could go wrong. So there was just some kissing. Some clumsy fumbling underneath her shirt—with gentle hands. Warm—warm in the grey cell in the winter daylight. And he'd kiss her with a softness it was almost impossible to remember, now.

All that was gone. Like it never existed to begin with.

She dug the knife into her hand, again. Forced out another chunk of wood. It went flying, and hit the floor a few feet away.

* * *

Bob came to see her, that night. Like he often did. Said he wanted to check out her hands.

It'd been a long time since Bob took her bandages off, and declared her healed. Well over a week. All that remained was to wait for her fingernails to grow back in—and there was nothing he could do to help with that. But he still came in to check on her. Sat with her. Checked the scars—as if they'd change. Told her stories about his military days, while he did it. The things the guys would do to pass time. Catching naps in the back of an ambulance, on the rifle range. Practical jokes in the barracks, at night.

He was telling one of those, now. Had her fingers lightly in hand, pretending to check them over.

"So Hank, he finally managed to get that marmot into a pillowcase, and he got scratched to hell doing it… but he  _also_  managed to get it all the way back, and shut it up in a stall in the officer's bathrooms."

Bob shook his head, and chuckled to himself:

"And Hank, after Chris comes outta there after a pretty long shit, he tells 'em all the toilet's backed up, and—"

"— _Bob_."

She looked at him:

"You talked to Maggie, didn't you."

It wasn't a question—and Bob didn't answer it. Just dropped the story immediately, and asked one of his own:

"How're you feeling, so far?"

"Ok," Beth said. Pulled one of her hands away, and picked at her sleeve with it:

"I mean, I was gettin' pretty sick, at first, but it seems like it isn't so often, anymore."

He nodded.

"As far as I know, that's pretty normal. And your blood pressure's good. That's something. You been getting enough to eat?"

"I guess..."

"I'll try and find some better things for you, when we're out."

She could hear the others in the next room—Rick, talking to Judith, quietly. Her little cries, while he bounced her up and down.

And Bob continued:

"Obstetrics really wasn't something we learned in the army. It was all about bullets and bleeding and shrapnel… nothing like this..."

He trailed off, a second, then started on again:

"But I can learn," he said, "I'll figure it out.  _We'll_  figure it out... ok?"

She nodded, and he smiled, a little, close-lipped smile.

"Together," he said, nodding back to her, "That's  _good_. We'll do it together."

Bob patted her hand, gently. He was always gentle with her. And she let him do it. He was still smiling at her, then.

And Beth… Beth found herself smiling right on back.

* * *

When she woke up in the train-car, Beth told herself she wouldn't think about Maggie. Wouldn't think about Terminus. But she kept heading in the direction the maps said to go. When she reached a crossing, she'd take the turn they marked.

And the signs continued:

_Glenn—go to Terminus. Bob. Sasha. Maggie._

Back home, when Beth was little, she always trailed after her sister. Wanted her attention all the time. Maggie was so grown up, and smart, and  _beautiful_ … and it made Beth want to be like that, too. She would follow Maggie around the house so much that she'd get mad, sometimes. Shout at her to go away. Rush up into her room, and slam the door.

And Beth—she'd wait for her to come out. And she always would, eventually. Might even play with her, when she did.

Sometimes, no matter how different things got, it felt like nothing ever changed. Not really.

It was pointless fooling herself about what she was doing—Beth was going to follow the signs. Maggie, Sasha, and Bob—they'd gone to that place. Terminus.

So Beth had to go there, too.

There was no real choice about it. Nothing else she could do with herself, now that she was alone.

And even  _that_  was stupid. She knew she'd go no matter  _how_  many other choices there were. If a safe haven popped up along the way—some happy, fortified town where she'd never be hurt ever again. If they put out the welcome mat with streamers and balloons and her name on a banner, she'd leave it behind.

She still wanted Maggie—more than ever. She wanted her sister.

There was a train tunnel—with no light on the other side. The whole thing was collapsed. Impassable. And even if she could wriggle her way through the debris, she thought she could hear walkers, inside.

She'd have to go around. Into the woods, where the clusters of dead were moving.

Beth would do it. She'd find a way.

* * *

The night stretched on, and Beth sat up with a candle. Curled up on the couch in the pastoral office, thumbing through a Bible. Searching for her father's favorite passages. Trying to hear them in his voice.

Her eye caught one, as she flipped around in the Gospels. Written out in red letters, and everything:

" _Woe to them that are with child, and give suck in those days; for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people."_

As far as she remembered, Dad never read that one, to her. Not once.

And a soft knock on the door, before it opened. The rooms outside the office were pitch black.

Maggie stepped out of the darkness. Her eyes were red—Beth could see it, even in the flickering light. And she didn't wait for Beth to say anything. Started in on what she wanted to say:

"You're right," she said, standing in the doorway, "I thought you were dead."

Beth put down the Bible. Looked to her, silently.

"You're my little  _sister_. I remember seeing you in a bassinet at the hospital… just so small, and pretty…"

Maggie shook her head. Looked up at the ceiling, as if she was trying to push back tears.

"Perfect."

She stepped into the room, and let the door fell shut softly, behind her:

"I've  _always_  been scared of you bein' around the walkers... When we were on the road—after we left home… that kept me up at night. So when we lost you, I thought… I thought there was no chance. I  _couldn't_  put your name on those signs. You  _had_  to be gone. I couldn't think..."

Her voice caught, then. She looked up at the ceiling. Breathed hard through her nose, and her chest trembled.

"… I couldn't think of you  _alive_. Cause it's  _not_  just walkers, is it? It never was. I just couldn't think about you, and what might be happening. What it'd be like for you, if you were alone…"

She sank down on the couch next to Beth. Spoke quietly, looking at the carpet:

"When I was in Woodbury…"

She trailed off. Shook her head, and started over:

"The way you've been looking at me, since you got here… like I'm tryin' to hurt you. How you've been hiding away from me. From everyone."

She was weeping openly, now. The tears ran down her face. A droplet caught on her nose, a moment, before falling to the ground.

"This whole time, I think I knew, already. Of  _course_  I did… I just didn't want to. And  _God_ … Beth… you were… what they… it's all just… I can't… I  _can't_ …"

She let out a sob, and buried her face in her hands.

Without thinking, Beth wrapped her arms around her sister. It was as natural as anything she'd ever done in her life.

She pulled her close—pressed her head against her chest, and cradled it.

Maggie murmured into her shirt, through the tears.

"Just don't disappear on me, ok?  _Don't_."

Beth rested her face in Maggie's hair. Felt a wave of relief passing through her.

"I love you.  _I love you_."

Beth pushed her lips against her sister's forehead—hard, and clung to her in the darkness.


	7. The Third Room

**Chapter 7: The Third Room**

* * *

_Hello everyone—Chapter 7 for you, today. So far, so good. If I keep writing this thing, then it probably won't be done before the end of the hiatus. I'm not thrilled by the prospect—I like things to be neatly finished before canon runs roughshod all over them. But I will do my best for you, either way._

_Thank you, thank you—everyone—for reading. All of you. It really is a pleasure to share my work, and I appreciate you all so much. And here's chapter seven! Enjoy!_

* * *

_The Third Room_

After the last day of school, nothing really changed, for Beth. Not at first. She hung around the house, did her chores, and waited to see if anything would happen.

A week later—Thursday afternoon—something did.

She was sitting at the piano bench. Thumbing around in an old hymnal, and playing some of the classics—to keep her mom company while she did some needlework on the sofa. And they sang the verses together—Beth was a soprano, and her mom was an alto. So two-part harmonies always went really well, for them.

And Beth got bored, sometimes, singing those hymns. They were so stiff and formal. The simple structure. The plodding chords. The old-fashioned lyrics. But Mom liked them a lot. Dad, too. So Beth did it to please them.

If she were on her own, someday, she'd sing something different.

They were halfway through  _Blessed Assurance_  when she noticed Shawn, pacing around on the porch outside. She could see his shadow passing the curtains, every so often, from the corner of her eye. He was checking on things, out there. Scanning the horizon. Had been doing that more and more, this past week. Their dad, too.

Nobody told Beth much of what was going on. Mom and Dad had been talking a lot, together—quietly, when they thought Beth wasn't around. And her dad made some trips into town with Otis—for reasons she didn't know or understand. And more than once, if they had the news on, and she walked into the room, they'd shut it off right away.

So Beth knew there was something they didn't want her to see. But she didn't know what it  _was_ —not until that afternoon. That was when Jimmy showed up in the front yard, covered head to toe in blood.

Shawn called them out—before they'd finished singing the last verse. Mom put down her cross-stitch and went straight for the door. And Beth followed along, after.

Sure enough, Jimmy was out there—splattered with red. It was on face. His hands. There was a clump of something on his shirt. Beth couldn't tell what it was. Meat, or guts… bits of skin. She'd never seen anything like it, before.

It seemed just like something out of a movie. The violent kind her parents didn't let her watch—not even now that she was sixteen. The kind she only saw at friends' sleepovers, or when her folks were out of town.  _Carrie_  or  _Saw_ , or… something.

She drifted towards the porch stairs. Mom was already there, with Dad at her side. When Beth joined them, and Mom reached out for her. Held her by the arms.

Dad was the first one to say anything. And he looked totally calm when he did it. His voice didn't betray any shock at all:

"What happened, son?"

It took Jimmy a second to answer him. His throat worked a moment. He took in a ragged breath.

"My mom, she…"

When he said that, Mom's hands tightened on Beth's arms.

It was like Jimmy couldn't breathe right. He seemed  _ok_ —he didn't seem hurt or anything. But it was like something was wrong with him, anyway. Something you couldn't see.

"My… my  _mom_ …"

He couldn't get it out. Stopped trying.

All at once, Beth's mom let go of her, and rushed off the porch. Mom was a slender woman, and Jimmy was pretty tall—but she just  _enveloped_  him. He crumpled into her, and she let him sink down onto the ground.

Mom had Jimmy's head cradled on her chest. Stroked his arms. Picked some bits of bloody hair out of his wristwatch. Long ones, with chunks of skin at the ends. She barely looked at them, when she did it. Just wiped them off, on the grass—like it was normal. Like she did it every day.

And Beth… Beth just stood there. There was a voice in her head saying she should go to Jimmy. Comfort him. He was her boyfriend, after all.

But somehow… suddenly… she didn't want to.

He wasn't the same.  _Nothing_  was the same. He didn't even seem like  _Jimmy_ , crying like that. She'd never seen him cry, before.

Later—when they started putting people in the barn—they asked Jimmy where his mother was. If they could find her, and take her in. And Jimmy told them not to bother. By the time he escaped their house, there wasn't much of her left.

* * *

The morning after the strip mall, Beth woke up a bit later than usual. She'd passed out cold the instant her head hit her pillow. Slept a long, deep, and dreamless sleep.

When she opened her eyes, she spent a bit of time watching the hazy sun making patterns on the office walls. Filtered stripes, in the shape of the drawn blinds. And when she got dressed, and opened her door, bright sunlight flooded in from the other side.

Maggie was right there, in the next room—like always. Sitting on the carpet, waiting for Beth to wake up. Her hair was messy—and her eyes looked tired.

She hadn't slept half as well as Beth did.

Beth let the door fall shut behind her, and her sister looked up with a little smile.

"Mornin'," she said.

Beth didn't say anything. Wordlessly reached out for Maggie's hand. Helped her up. Didn't let go, after.

And they walked down the hall, together, to the classroom where the others were eating breakfast. Beth could hear their voices—the clinking of spoons and things. A quiet laugh.

And sure enough, most of the them were in there, working on bowls of stale cereal. They had pitcher of powdered milk out on an activity table. A bag of fresh peaches, too.

Michonne got up, right away. Held out a cereal bowl, for Beth. One they'd set aside for her. Asked a question:

"Breakfast?"

Beth didn't answer, right away. Felt Maggie at her side. Looked at all those faces, looking back at her. Carol, holding Judith, with a half-smile on her face. Carl. Bob. Michonne, holding that bowl out in the open air—ready to take.

Beth let go of Maggie's hand, then. Stepped towards the table, and reached out for the bowl.

"Yeah," she said, "Ok."

* * *

That Monday, it happened.

Beth was in the woods, with Shawn. The sun had barely come up, and the air felt cool and misty—even though the sky was blue, and the sun was bright. Shawn had one of his long-sleeved flannels on, and before they left the house, Beth buttoned one of her cardigan sweaters over her t-shirt.

They'd already made it a couple miles out, by now—along the eastern edge of the property. Beth's boots were wet with morning dew.

She was gathering kindling for the fireplace, while Shawn looked around the perimeter. Made sure everything was secure—that the animals couldn't get out through a gap in the fence. It was their job since they were younger, and they did it every week or so. Beth liked it. It was nice to walk that familiar walk. Take in the familiar views, as they changed along with the seasons.

Beth was a little ways away from her brother, when it happened. She could barely see him through the underbrush—crouched down at the fence, and checking a gate. Making sure it latched strong and firm. That the hinges were smooth and clear of debris.

She left him behind. Wandered a bit deeper into the woods—carefully pushing her way between stands of briars. They pricked at her sweater, a bit—but she was careful. And they couldn't hurt her through her feet through cowboy boots. The whole time, she had her eyes on the ground—scanning the forest floor for kindling. She picked up dry sticks, here and there, and put them in a PBS tote bag.

Beth had a bit of loose birch bark in her hand when she heard it. A sound.

A moaning, low kind of thing.

Beth squinted. Searched the distance, through the trees. But there was nothing.

She thought it might be coming from a bit further down the ridge—off by the marshland that encircled the farm. She headed that way. One of the calves might've gotten loose, and ended up stuck in the mire. That happened, sometimes. Whenever one came up missing, Daddy would hunt for it until he found it. And he always got it out, safe and sound—like something out of a Gospel parable.

Closer to the marsh water, she saw the shape through the trees. When she got closer, she realized it wasn't a calf, after all.

It was Mrs. Phillips.

She was one of their neighbors—an elderly lady her mom got to know real well through the church, years and years before Beth was born. And as far as Beth was concerned, Mrs. Phillips was older than time. Ninety. Ninety-five. Beth didn't know. There was a point where you were just  _old_.  _How_  old didn't really matter.

Beth never knew her when there was a  _Mr_. Phillips—just that she kept a photograph of him on the piano in her front parlor—something taken during WWII. He was wearing his naval uniform. Looked about Shawn's age.

And now, Mrs. Phillips was waist-deep in the marsh water, a hundred yards into the woods by her daddy's east field. She seemed really stuck, in there—pinned in place by a fallen tree. Even her  _arms_  were caught.

And she looked really bad. Her housedress was torn open, and hung in tatters off her shoulders. The muddy strips were cleaving to her back. She was a tiny woman—always had been. You could see her bones working under the skin. The blue veins. Her bare breasts sagged low, deflated against her rib cage.

Beth got clumsy, then, somehow—dropped the tote bag on a cluster of dead leaves. Mrs. Phillips darted her head towards the sound. Snapped at the air. Groaned, and stared Beth straight in the face.

The old lady was infected.

Beth had never seen one of the sick people, before. Not in person. Only on tv, and only before her parents stopped letting her watch the news. They were far away things—on other side of the glass screen on the old Panasonic.

And somehow—even after what happened with Jimmy—it never occurred to her one would show up on the farm.

She turned around. Heard Mrs. Phillips wheezing at her back. Called to her brother, through the trees. Quiet, at first:

"Shawn…?"

Nothing. So she tried again—louder:

" _Shawn!_ "

Moments later, he broke through the brush. Threw her a nervous glance:

"What's up?"

Beth pointed.

" _Look_."

And he looked. They both did. Mrs. Phillips struggled against the mud—threw her shoulders forward, trying to get free. It only worked her in deeper.

It made Beth uncomfortable, to look at her. She must've been  _freezing_ , soaked in the water like that, for so long. Her hair was wet—she usually had it in a neat, salon perm. The curls hid how thin it was. But now, it fell flat against her skull. Made her look like death.

Shawn stepped towards the edge of the water. Spoke, gently:

"Mrs. Phillips…? Ma'am?"

The old lady tried to pull her arms free. But she couldn't.

And Beth trailed behind her brother. Hiding a bit, at his back. She was scared, a little, and didn't know what to do.

_Shawn_ , though. He was in full-on Eagle Scout mode. Was doing that thing her dad did with Jimmy—speaking calmly, like nothing was wrong:

"Are you ok? Ma'am—are you stuck?"

Beth leaned in, whispered in his ear, from behind.

"What do we  _do_ …?"

He patted Beth's shoulder with a reassuring hand:

"It's ok—it's ok. I'll go and get her."

He was unbuttoning his shirt, then. Handed it to her. It was warm from his body. Held that heat for a little while, before it faded away.

She remembered that detail really clearly, later.

He was making his way to the water's edge—turned to look at her:

"When we come out, you put that on her, ok? She'll need something warm and dry to wear."

And he leaned down. Pulled off his Chuck Taylors—hopped on one foot to do it, then the other. When he was done, he left them there on a rock, at the edge of the water—with his tube socks at their side.

"I'm comin' in, ok Ma'am? Then Beth and me—we're gonna take you back to our Dad. He'll see to you."

He started wading into the water, and Mrs. Phillips snarled at him in a way that made Beth nervous.

But it didn't faze Shawn. He seemed just fine. Spoke to her, gently:

"Dad'll fix you right up. Good as new."

* * *

It was probably July, by now. The days were long, and the nights were short. And the heat had that wet tinge that cleaved to your skin. The dank smell in the church was worse, now, than before. There was mold growing behind bookshelves, and in dark corners. Underneath things, where you couldn't see.

But Beth didn't mind. July was  _good_. It meant thunderstorms, and it meant wildflowers. Back home, the farm fields would be bursting with color, by now.

She thought about that, while she worked on the dishes from breakfast. Had Judith on the kitchen floor, on a blanket, rattling some measuring spoons to herself.

She was babbling, and Beth babbled back. Sang her some songs—whatever came to mind. Changed the words, so they'd be about Judith.

" _Judy-bird, Judy-bird, fly through my window, Judy-bird, Judy-bird, fly through my window_  …"

She'd told Michonne she didn't like nursery songs, once. And at the time, it was true. But somehow, they didn't seem so bad to her, anymore.

Beth looked out, past the curtains. Into the yard. And the uncut grass reminded her of home. It was riddled with chicory, and dandelions, and purple phlox. The blooms stirred in the wind, against the statue of Mary, out there by the fence.

Judy rattled her measuring spoons at Beth. When she turned, Judy was holding them up for her to see. So Beth crouched down, a moment:

"I like those, too," she said, "They make a nice sound, right?"

Beth was barely back to her dishes, when a noise outside broke the quiet. An industrial mower, revving up in the yard. She hadn't heard something like that since they'd cleared the prison yard for planting. The others were about to cut all of the green stuff out there down—to clear the yard, and make it useable. For planting, parking vehicles… whatever they needed.

The mower was louder than what she remembered, from before. A deep growl, that made the kitchen counter vibrate under her forearms. The decorative plates above the window shook, a bit. The two with that half-finished prayer on them.

It made Beth wonder about the two that were missing. Maybe they fell off the wall. Maybe they shattered.

She could hear voices, outside—Rick and Michonne and Glenn, shouting to each other over the mower. The rest were probably keeping watch, to make sure the noise didn't attract the wrong kind of attention.

Earlier in the morning, Beth sat out there, and watched the others get ready. Perched on the steps, and bounced Judith on her knee. And while Beth was there, she pulled some phlox up by the roots. It came up clean—soil and all—in a big clump.

And she brought it inside, with her. Had it on the windowsill, now, resting in a teacup.

She leaned against the counter, staring out at Mary, encircled by tall grass, and flowers. She was totally headless of the mower, on its way towards her little bower.

And someone spoke over Beth's shoulder:

"That's pretty."

She turned. Carl was standing in the doorway—looking at the flower on the sill. And there was that hat of his, hanging on his back from its string. The curve of the brim, in a circle at his back. Like a halo that slipped a little, and settled down onto his shoulders.

Beth smiled.

"It was in the yard," she said, "They're gonna be diggin' everything up out there… so it was just gonna get plowed under, you know?"

Carl patted his sister on the head, then grabbed a jug of water. And he turned to go. Somehow, Beth didn't want him to  _leave_  just yet. The feeling took her by surprise. So she kept talking:

"I just… I didn't want them to kill it."

"You should plant it someplace," Carl said, turning back into the room. Crouching down by his sister. Picking up the measuring spoons, and jiggling them around, for her:

"Maybe next to that acorn."

* * *

Beth was five years old, and screaming for her mother.

Mrs. Phillips' had her on her lap, at the piano in her front parlor. And antique Baldwin, with a lace shawl over the back. Some Hummel angels, faded silk roses, and her husband's portrait in a silver frame. The old lady had one arm circled around Beth's waist. Played out a string of notes with the other. No chords. Just the melody.

And Beth—she was  _bawling_. Those hot, despairing tears you can't seem to cry when you're older. She hated it when Mrs. Phillips babysat for her.  _Hated_  it. Her house smelled funny—like stale perfume. And it was really,  _really_  quiet—there was nothing to do. No toys—just a bunch of little glass things on end tables you weren't supposed to touch.

Mrs. Phillips didn't even have a  _cat_ , anymore. Her Siamese was dead, now. And it never liked playing with Beth much, anyway.

But regardless of how much she screamed, the old lady didn't give up—bounced her a little on one knee, and kept on playing that piano. Trying to soothe her. After a while, she started singing—in her feeble, cracking voice:

" _Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!_ _  
_ _Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!_ _  
_ _Heir of salvation, purchase of God,_ _  
_ _Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood._ "

But nothing doing. Beth could remember how she felt, that day. She  _knew_  the old lady was trying to comfort her—but she wouldn't have it. She wanted to cry. Wanted to go  _home_.

Eventually, Mrs. Phillips gave up on singing, and tried something else:

" _I_  know,  _I_  know. Mama's gonna come  _real_  soon," she said, scooping Beth up in her arms. Carrying her across the living room. Patting her on the back.

And that old woman was barely five feet tall, and light as a sparrow. Must've been eighty years old, by then—at least. But she carried Beth like it was easy. Like she wasn't screaming into her blouse, and staining it with snot and tears.

" _Mama's comin'_. But for now, let's have some nice, cold milk, together. And  _ginger snaps_."

* * *

Beth planted the phlox, then went in the yard to get some more. Carl helped her. Put a bunch of flowers on flats of cardboard, so she could bring them into the courtyard.

By evening, there was a whole bed of them at the east wall. She didn't have any tools, so she'd borrowed some kitchen stuff to do it. Dug the holes with a serving spoon. Carried water in by hand, in gallon jugs, to keep them wet.

She'd need to till the soil, before she did much more. There were a lot of rocks, in there. She'd ask Maggie about where they could get some rakes and shovels, so she could get more of that stuff in the ground.

* * *

"Mrs. Phillips?

Shawn was waist deep in the muck, and right next to Mrs. Phillips.

And he took the old lady in his arms. Bare chest to bare chest, with her head turned to the side. She kept trying to turn towards body—like she wanted to face him. Maybe to look at him, or something. Beth wasn't really sure.

She was weak, though—and she didn't have any purchase to do very much. Pinned under that tree branch, with her arms stuck in the mud, she was pretty helpless.

He pulled at her, gently. Moved the branch as best he could. And the moment he got it out of the way, and raised her arms out of the mire, she started clawing at his bare skin with weak hands. Beth could see the veins on them—standing out. The sinews working. Making the age spots stretch and bend.

And Shawn ignored it. Reached down further into the muck, to raise her out.

"Here we go… here we go."

And he lifted her—in his arms, like a bridegroom. Struggled against the mud, for a moment, then got her free.

* * *

Beth crouched in the middle of the courtyard, putting a circle of pencils in the ground. Yellow number twos—the kind you brought to elementary school. And she tied a long strand of dental floss around them—for a makeshift fence.

She wanted to keep people from stepping on that acorn. Wasn't sure what time of year they sprouted—or if she'd planted it right.

And Judy pawed at the mud, at Beth's side. Got her little sundress all dirty. She'd have to get Carol to help give her a bath, later.

Carol… earlier, she'd brought her a box full of gardening stuff—and a bunch of seeds. No vegetables. All flowers. When she showed them to Beth, Carol handed her a packet of columbine, off the top of the pile.

"Happy birthday," she said.

Beth took it. Smiled—a little shyly.

"It's not my birthday…"

Beth turned the packet it around in her fingers. Listened to the seeds rattle, inside.

And Carol turned to go. Leaned a hand on the doorframe, and looked back at Beth a moment:

"Well," she said, "I'm sure it's somebody's."

* * *

Shawn leaned over the kitchen sink. Held his arm under the faucet, and rinsed out the bite as best he could.

Beth watched him do it—hugging herself tight with her arms. The water was red, in the bottom of the basin. The drain was really slow, lately, so the water backed up in there. Got redder and redder, as he bled into the stream.

She bit her lip.

" _Shawn_ …"

And he shrugged, a little. Like everything was fine.

"It's ok," he said, "She didn't mean to."

She peered over his shoulder, at his forearm. At the wound. It looked like a dog bite, but much, much smaller. Two crescent rings—a row of tooth impressions. Some of the teeth hadn't broken the skin all the way. Mrs. Phillips was old and weak, and some of her teeth were missing altogether.

But she had enough fight left in her to the do the job.

Beth shook it off. Tried to focus on Shawn.

"Does it… does it hurt?"

"A little, yeah," he said, turning off the faucet, and holding his arm out for Beth to clean.

She reached across the counter for the first aid kit. And as she fished around in the bandages and bottles and packets of things, he kept on talking—almost to himself:

"I just wish she didn't get  _away_  from us, like that… I still coulda taken her back here, you know? Somethin' must've distracted her while you were helping me up."

Beth didn't answer. Just unscrewed the little bottle of peroxide, and poured it on the wound. The stuff started foaming up, and Shawn winced:

" _Man_ , that stings…"

She pressed the towel against his forearm, a moment. Then she put some gauze on there, and taped it over.

"Shawn, she seemed pretty sick, and—"

"— _I'm_  not sick _,_ Beth. I feel  _fine_.  _Nothing's wrong_ , ok?"

He put his good hand on her shoulder. Moved in really close. His face was dead serious.

"Don't tell Dad.  _Definitely_  don't tell Mom. She'd really freak out."

He let go. Rolled down his sleeve. It was that same flannel shirt—the one he wanted Mrs. Phillips to wear, when he got her out of the water. The way things went down, Beth never had a chance to offer it to her.

She just looked at him. At his arm. It looked perfectly normal, now that the bite was covered up. But she knew it was there, and it spooked her.

He must've sensed it, because he reached out for her, then. Gave her a little, half-hug with is good arm.

" _Trust me_ , Sis. We're  _alright_. It's all gonna be  _alright_."

He patted the side of Beth's cheek. Nudged her chin with his knuckle. Smiled at her.

The blood was still running down the drain, while he did it.

* * *

By late July, a wave of heavy storms started battering the town. There was flooding, in some areas. Fallen trees, that made it hard for them to drive anywhere.

The rain got so bad, after a while, that Daryl had to stop his wandering. He was in the church every day—but Beth barely saw him, all the same. They passed in the hallway, a few times. Every time that happened, it was like the air got sucked out of her lungs. She'd get away as fast as she could—like a some kind of skittish little creature. A mouse, or vole, or some other tiny thing that hid under stairways or in stone walls, or woodpiles.

But that afternoon, she wasn't worried about Daryl. She was worried about her  _plants_. The worst storm yet was rolling through. It was dark like nighttime—except when the lightning hit, and lit everything brilliant and fast for an instant, before disappearing into darkness, again.

Beth crouched over some of the sprouts with an umbrella. Sheltered them. Didn't want them to get crushed by the hail. These were Zinnias, she thought. She'd planted the seeds, and the tiny leaves were already starting to peek out of the soil.

And she couldn't let them die. Not  _now_. They'd only just started.

Over time, her boots sank into the wet earth, and the water pooled around them. Got in through the soles, and dampened her socks. Thunder broke across the sky and sent the air trembling.

But she ignored all that. Just dug at the earth—with her hands. Didn't have her trowel—and she wouldn't leave her sprouts to get anything. She made a little trench around the seedlings—trying to direct the water away.

While she did it, Daryl passed in the hallway. He stopped at one of the windows. Watched her, a little while, before drifting away.

Beth never noticed. Just kept working, in the rain.

* * *

Maggie clutched at Shawn's bare shoulders. Rolled him over on his side, on the bed. She barely got his head clear of the mattress when he threw up, again. He was running so hot he couldn't even tolerate bedsheets—and he was sweating hard, and he was delirious.

Maggie held a bowl up for him, and he gagged, hard. Wheezing, heaving spasms tremored through his back. Beth saw the muscles grinding under his skin, from her perch at the other side of the bed.

When he was done, Maggie tried to get him to sip at some water. But he choked on it, and she hit his back, trying to clear it:

"C'mon, Shawn. _C'mon_. You can do it."

When he settled, she lowered him down onto his pillow again. He gasped for air—gulped it in like a goldfish that jumped out of its bowl.

"Ok… ok," Maggie said, brushing back his sweaty hair, "It's ok."

He tried to say something to her, but it was confused. Just a jumble of sounds, really. He was delirious, and only made sense some of the time.

But now… it was like he knew what he wanted to tell them, but it didn't come  _out_  right.

" _Shhh_ …" Maggie whispered. Leaned against him. Pressed her forehead in his hair. She clung at him for a long time, in the quiet. The only noise was his ragged, wheezing breath.

Then—suddenly—Shawn moved. Looked straight at Beth, and said the last thing she ever heard him say:

"Did you find Mrs. Phillips, yet? Is… is she ok?"

* * *

Sometime late in July, Beth finally decided to check out the church Sanctuary.

She'd been singing a lot, lately—while working on the flowers, and while looking after Judy. And it seemed like it'd be nice to practice on the piano, a bit. As far as she knew, nobody went in there—so it might be a nice place to work on some new music.

So she headed that way. Walked by the stairway to the bell tower—charred and black. Down a quiet, windowless hallway, dark and shaded.

She pushed the big doors open, and walked inside. Her boots rapped against the stone floor. Echoed in the quiet. The rain was hard on the roof, this morning. Ran down the stained glass windows in heavy streams.

Looking around, Beth realized the others were using the place a lot.

There maps. Dozens of them, up all over the altar at the front of the church. There was a big crucifix, and the Jesus on it had a really big one taped to both his hands. It hung down over his body.

Each one had writing all over it. Little diagrams, in rough handwriting.

Beth spun around. The pews, too… they were covered in boxes of weapons. Cases of ammunition. Some of the guns were pretty high-powered.

She didn't know where the others found that stuff. Nobody had told her it was there.

Beth was about to investigate the stuff a little more carefully when she heard footsteps in the hall outside. And she bolted—without thinking. Didn't want anyone to see her in here, somehow.

She ducked into the first door she saw—at the side wall. Turned out, it was a confessional. Light filtered through the screen, dividing the stall from the other side.

And she'd barely sunk down on the bench, in there, when the door on the other side opened. A shape stepped into it. Sank down onto the bench across from hers.

Daryl.

He sat there, for a while. The sound of his breath mingled with the falling rain. The screen turned his face into a silhouette, in the filtered light.

And he leaned his head in both hands. Let out a rough, hard sigh. And he looked tired, to her. Exhausted.

She stayed stock still until he got up. Paced the stone floor a bit, in the aisle, and walked away.

* * *

Mom and Dad took over caring for Shawn, in the night. The dark settled into the house. Nobody remembered to turn any lights on, downstairs. Just in Shawn's room. The third room, on the far side of the hall.

Beth and Maggie were relieved of duty hours beforehand—so they could try to get some sleep. But neither of them did it. Just sat in the hall, together, outside the bedroom door. Waiting. Every so often, they could hear their parents' voices—talking together quietly, on the other side.

Beth leaned her head against Maggie's shoulder, and Maggie petted her hair. After a while, she started drifting.

She was almost asleep, when a horrible noise broke the quiet. Mom. She was crying.  _Sobbing_. A sound like pure, raw agony.

Beth had never heard anything like it her whole life. She'd remember it, later. How it echoed through the hall. It bounced off the ceiling. The ancient, hardwood floors. Reverberated like a chorus of women, wailing for their children.

And Dad. He opened the bedroom door, very slowly. Stepped outside, into the hall. Closed the door carefully—so it barely latched.

And he took out his handkerchief. Pressed it to his face.

Maggie's arm tightened around Beth. They both knew it.

Shawn was dead.

* * *

The sun came out, eventually. And Beth spent her time in the garden. She sat in the new grass, and knotted some of her dandelions together in a chain.

And she draped some over Judith. Made her necklaces. Carl and Maggie came out to sit with the two of them, while she did it.

"Judy likes yellow a lot," Carl asked, "Don't you think?"

"It's a good color to like," Maggie said, "It's happy."

Carl smiled.

"Happy suits her."

Beth was about to give Judith another chain, when she reached out to her. Tried to grab it. Cooed, and then made a little noise:

"Bef."

It didn't register, at first. Then she said it again:

" _Bef_."

Carl let out a surprised laugh, at that.

"Oh my  _God_ ," he said, "Did she just…?"

But Judith hadn't started talking yet, and Beth felt uncertain. Shook her head.

"I dunno if—"

Judy pawed at Beth's knees, then. Looked up at her.

" _Bef!_ "

Beth gave Judith the chain, and she pulled at the flowers.

"Somebody  _likes you_ ," Maggie said.

* * *

When dawn rose that Wednesday, Dad went out in the yard, and started digging a grave for Shawn.

Jimmy helped him—wordlessly. Beth could tell he didn't have the first clue what to say to any of them. So he just helped, where he could.

When Beth pulled back the lace curtains, and looked out the window, the two of them had just started cutting into the sod. She could see them—way off in the shade of some oak trees, closer to the barn. Their familiar shapes. And she remembered how she'd wait at the bus stop, and see Jimmy walking towards her from far, far away.

And Beth didn't really understand why they were digging a grave  _themselves_ , like that. Why they didn't bring Shawn to the church. The cemetery. Why the funeral home didn't come and take him away. Or an ambulance.

She didn't get to think about it very long.A noise broke thequiet, in the house. Something falling over, upstairs.

_Thud_.

Then a shout. Their mom.

Maggie jumped up from where she was sitting. Went running headlong for the stairs.

" _Mom?_ "

Beth followed—Maggie was almost at the top of the landing when Mom came out into the hall, holding one arm out. Her other hand was clasped over it, and their was blood seeping through her fingers.

She looked at the two of them with wet eyes:

"He's  _not dead_."

Beth made it to the top landing. Tears were running down Mom's face, then. And she rushed forward, and embraced Maggie and Beth at once. Let out a sob, against them.

"I was  _so sure_."

She pulled back, looked straight at Maggie:

"Go tell your father," she said, "Tell him to stop digging."

Maggie nodded, and rushed down the stairs, again. And Mom clung to Beth. Buried her face in her shoulder—laughing and crying, all at once.

All at once, the door at Mom's back started shaking. Like someone was throwing their weight against it. Beating it with their fists.

_Thud-thud-thud. Thud-thud-thud._

Beth tensed, and Mom just kept holding her.

"Thank God, Baby," she murmured, "Thank  _God_."

* * *

Bob checked up on Beth regularly, all that summer. He told her he was going to try and find some books for her—first chance he got. Medical stuff. If they went on a run near a library, or a bookstore, he'd slip off alone, grab them, and bring them back.

He'd try to read up on natural childbirth—would try to find some real technical guides. Then they'd go over what he learned. Figure out how they'd do it, when the time came.

And one day, he came in with a brown bag.

"No books, sorry—but you'll like it."

She opened it. Read the label on the package, inside.

"Paperwhites…"

"They're bulbs."

She could tell. Little onion-y things with a papery skin.

"Found those in a shed, on the run this morning," Bob said, "Just keep 'em until winter. Somewhere cool and dry. Then you plant 'em, and they'll come up in the spring."

"Just like magic," she said.

He smiled.

"Just like nature," he said.

* * *

Soon enough, Beth's mom was in that third bedroom. Banging on the door, right along with her brother.

_Thud-thud-thud. Thud-thud-thud._

Beth found herself drawn there. Spent a lot of time in the hallway—sitting against the far wall, with her chin on her knees. The door was barricaded with the old china cabinet, and the two of them couldn't break through.

If they did, they might try to hurt her. Mom and Shawn. They might do that.

The doors on that cabinet locked with a little, brass key. They rattled with every blow on the other side of the bedroom door. Otis forgot a single teacup, in there, when he pushed the cabinet into place. Beth watched it jump, a little, every so often, when Mom or Shawn got a really good strike in.

_Thud-thud-thud. Thud-thud-thud._

The noise was so  _loud_ —especially up close like Beth was. It bounced off the hardwood floors. The beams in the ceilings. Echoed through the house. You couldn't get  _away_  from it, so Beth figured she wouldn't bother. She'd sit right here, and listen to the two of them. She'd sit, and wait, and hope.

It'd been a while now. Any day, they might start getting better.

So with all that noise in the hall—and in her head—Beth didn't hear Jimmy's footsteps on the stairs until he'd nearly reached the top. She didn't look up, but she knew it was him. She could see his shadow on the hardwood—tall and boyish. With Shawn in the third bedroom, nobody else in the house would cast one like that.

"C'mon Beth," he said.

And he lifted her up, off the ground. Gently. Like Shawn with Mrs. Phillips, at the marsh.

"Come downstairs with me, ok?"

_Thud-thud-thud._

It just kept on coming. That sound. Louder—now that they heard voices in the hall. They never seemed to get tired. Never seemed to sleep.

Jimmy did his best to ignore it, though Beth could tell he was tense. He never looked at the cabinet, blocking the bedroom door. Made it a point to look anywhere but there.

"Don't listen like that," he said, "Try not to hear."

He was about to take her to the stairs—but she made him put her down, then. Didn't want to be carried around the house, when she could walk on her own.

Somehow, it didn't feel quite right.

* * *

One August morning, when Beth was digging in the courtyard garden, her shovel hit something that shattered against the blade.

She furrowed her brow. Knelt down, and brushed the dirt out of the way.

It was a plate—one with a gold rim, and flowers on it. And there was writing. She laid out the pieces on the ground.

" _Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners."_

Behind that, Beth found a little bundle of cloth. Soiled with dirt, and half eaten away. She pulled the edge aside, carefully.

Inside it was a severed hand.

She brushed some more of the dirt away. And there was no doubt about it—it was a tiny, delicate little hand. A toddler's hand. It'd been there a long time. Some parts of it were just bone, and bits of leathery skin clung to others. Grey and colorless, and stained with soil.

Beth looked at it, and it told her a story. That was the only thing someone managed to save, from the body. So they'd buried it here, under that plate, before moving on.

And there was another plate, beneath that little bundle. She could see a hint of the gold rim. A painted lily, on a fragment of porcelain. And she didn't have to take it out, to know what it said:

" _Now until the hour of our death."_

And it struck her—the toy truck. The one she found when she first came out here.  _This_  was where that matchbox truck was, when she first laid eyes on it. This precise spot—right over the grave. It wasn't abandoned, here, after all.

It was a tombstone.

She reached out. Touched the little fingertips—curled up like withered claws.

No one would touch them ever again.

Then she laid the plate down in place, very gently. Made sure the pieces lined up right.

Beth covered it all with the soil, and let it be.

* * *

_Thud-thud-thud. Thud-thud-thud._

Mom and Shawn were still beating on the door. Beth was at the piano, that morning, trying hard to play over the sound. Maggie and Dad were on the sofa, behind her, listening.

And when Beth sat down, the first thing she wanted to play were the old hymns. Her mom's favorites—she could probably hear from upstairs, and Beth kind of hoped she'd recognize them. That they'd make her feel a little better.

" _This is my story, this is my song,_ _  
_ _Praising my Savior all the day long_ …"

_Thud-thud-thud._

Beth tried to ignore it. Just kept playing. But it was useless. The third room had taken over the entire  _house_. It was all Beth thought about. All her Dad thought about. Maggie.

" _This is my st—"_

_Thud-thud-thud._

She heard Maggie gasp, at her back—stifling back a sob. Sensed their father, shifting in place—the sofa creaked, a little, as he did it. And Beth knew he was leaning over to hold her sister. Calm her down.

And Beth took a breath. Started singing, again:

"…  _this is my story, this is my song,_ _  
_ _Praising my Savior all the day long._ "

* * *

One August morning, Beth woke up early. Figured she'd help Carol with breakfast. Tugged her jeans on.

For the first time, they wouldn't zip up all the way.

So she went down the hall. Borrowed one of Glenn's buttondowns, and wore it loose over her shirt. Figured it'd hide anything anyone might notice, for the meantime.

* * *

By the end of the week, they moved Mom and Shawn out of that bedroom—and Otis and Patricia moved in. The other farms were overrun, they said. It wasn't safe out there.

The only safe place was right here, at home.

Otis helped Jimmy and Dad take the two of them to the barn. Maggie pulled Beth into her bedroom, when they did it. Held her tight—like she might bolt out into the hall at any moment.

So Beth hadn't seen Mom and Shawn once, this whole time.

She didn't like that. Wanted to see her mother. Her brother. So that night, she took the Coleman lantern from the utility shed, and made her way to the barn.

She climbed up in the hayloft. It was a favorite spot, when she was a kid. It was a fun place to read. To be alone, and think.

She held her lantern out into the darkness.

"Mom…?"

Nothing, at first.

"Mom…?"

Then a snarl. A ragged breath. A shape, moving in the dark, down below. And another.

She caught a flash of her mom's face. Her hair, piled up on her head in that loose bun she liked to wear. Maggie pinned it up that way, when Mom went totally comatose. When they thought she might've died.

And Beth wanted her to  _react_. Wanted some recognition, in that face. The harsh light bounced off her mother's pale skin. Her blue lips. And she clawed at the air. Tried to reach Beth.

An instant later, Shawn shoved her out of the way, and Mom disappeared into the darkness.

Beth choked on a lump in her throat.

" _Mommy…?_ "

She wished she hadn't come up here. She didn't want to see their faces like that—half-human. Angry. Harshly lit against the night darkness.

And Beth… she didn't know if they'd get better. Or how long it'd take. Their whole lives were changing, and there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn't even  _understand_  it.

Everything was falling apart. Everything.

* * *

By the beginning of September, the courtyard had run wild. There were stands of goldenrod. Asthers. Columbine, crawling up the stone walls. After a while, Beth didn't bother with keeping things in flower beds. Just let them grow where they wanted to grow.

She liked that. Didn't want to make the place feel rigid. Didn't want rows of things, all parceled out in their own spaces. Nature wasn't like that. Nature was messy. It couldn't be controlled. Your ideas of what it should or shouldn't do… they didn't really  _matter_.

And that was right. It suited the place. The rambling moss, coating the stone. The arched windows. A little, hidden space, full of color. If you looked at the church from the outside, you'd never guess it was there.

She remembered what it was like before—when she first got to this place. Empty and dead. It wasn't like that, now.

With the flowers all around, it was beautiful.


End file.
